Treasure of the Spanish Civil War

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By Serge Pey & Donald Nicholson-Smith

Publisher Description

An intimate portrait of childhood during Spain's violent fascist regime, rendered in a surreal kaleidoscope of linked stories.

Serge Pey's stories are lyrical, vivid vignettes of life during and directly following Spain's violent fascist regime of the thirties and forties. The collection is a defiant ode to the resilience of the human spirit, each story depicting a small act of human resistance: a man plants a fruit tree for each of his assassinated comrades; a professor hides a secret library of banned books in plain sight. Many of the stories are surreal, fable-like impressions from the perspective of children caught in the midst of the political violence. Pey's understated yet unusual prose renders a brutal landscape with childlike wonder. The Treasure of the Spanish Civil War and Other Tales is a strikingly original meditation on courage, survival, and hope in the face of oppression.

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1 Review

4.0

Drifterontherun

Created almost 5 years ago

“I try and balance my reading out. I'm naturally drawn to novels, but I love a great short story collection or non-fiction read as well. If I read only one book at a time, it's almost certainly a novel, and then as soon as I'm done with it I tend to just pick up another novel. I can easily subsist on a diet of purely novels. But, to diversify my reading life, I try to keep a rotating list of one novel, one short story collection, and one book of non-fiction. It's all carefully scheduled too, you see. Right after I wake up, I'll read a short story in whatever collection I currently happen to be on. Then, whenever I happen to have time to read during the day, I'll tackle the nonfiction book. Finally, in the hour or so before bed, I'll pick up the novel — saving the best for last, as I've always done. On top of that I usually listen to an audiobook when performing mundane tasks, brushing my teeth, for example, or making a commute. I find that I'm too easily distracted when I listen to fiction (I don't like my novels listened to, unless I happen to be reading them at the same time), so I usually listen to non-fiction, something uber compelling that will pull me in easily, as, again, I'm not a particularly good listener (that despite having taken an actual listening class when I was in college). I find true crime works best. Which brings me, at last, to my most recent short story collection, "The Treasure of the Spanish Civil War." I'd never heard of the author, Serge Pey, before, nor did I know really anything about the Spanish Civil War, outside of what I know of Hemingway's biography and Picasso's "Guernica," of course. Though to remedy this, and because I thought it would coincide nicely with my reading fictional stories set during this very real event, I'm also currently listening to a history of the Spanish Civil War, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40961640.Spain_in_Our_Hearts_Americans_in_the_Spanish_Civil_War__1936_1939 . It is only because of my subscription with Archipelago Books, a wonderful little publisher I've almost certainly mentioned in previous reviews, that I received this collection, as I likely would never have even heard of it otherwise. These stories are gripping. Of the 16 that compose this collection, there were six real standouts for me. Here they are, in order of appearance: 1. "An Execution." Brings to mind one of those old Clint Eastwood westerns, only far more poetic and heart rending. Includes some of the most beautiful language of anything I've read lately. 2. "The Washing and the Clothes Line." Very sort of cloak and dagger, illustrates the role that townspeople played in the war. 3. "The Scarab's Revenge." My favorite. A delicious tale of revenge, with scorpions! 4. "The Piece of Wood." My second favorite. Heartbreaking look at how Franco's troops would break their captives. 5. "The Arrest." I love this idea of "the enemy among us" that plays out as Republican captives, imprisoned inside a railroad car on their way to a concentration camp, debate amongst themselves over whether to attempt an escape. 6. "The White Library." Think https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/155517.Italo_Calvino merged with Belle's cute little French village in "Beauty and the Beast." Some readers will doubtless find that these stories are not to their taste. They all have that very surreal, sort of magical realism you'd find in the novels of https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13450.Gabriel_Garc_a_M_rquez and the aforementioned Italo Calvino. If you go for their books, as I do, I think you'll find this to your taste. If you prefer your stories' language more grounded in reality, then you might be better off giving this a pass. For me, though, this collection is a treasure.”

About Serge Pey

Serge Pey is a French writer, poet, and visual and performance artist. A child of the Spanish Civil War, Pey was born in Toulouse to a working class immigrant family. Pey's work is inseparable from his political conscience and focuses on the intersection of poetry and revolution. Pey received the Grand Prix de Poesié in 2017 for Flamenco and the Boccace Prize in 2012 for Treasures of the Spanish Civil War and Other Tales. He is also a laureate of the Robert Ganzo Poetry Prize. Pey now teaches contemporary poetry at the University of Mirai.

Donald Nicholson-Smith's translations include works by Thierry Jonquet, Guy Debord, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Henri Lefebvre, Paoul Vaneigem, Antonin Artaud, Jean Laplanche, and J.B. Pontalis. His translation of Apollinaire's Letters to Madeleine was shortlisted for the 2012 French-American Foundation Prize for Nonfiction and in 2014 he won the Foundation's Fiction Prize for his translation of Jean-Patrick Manchette's The Mad and the Bad. His translation of In Praise of Defeat by Abdellatif Laâbi was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2017. He has been named a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres for services to French literature in translation.