The legacy of the legendary press Ruedo Ibérico is reborn: Brenan, García Oliver, and Koltsov, among the authors recovered by Backlist
By Carles Geli
The point was to fight Franco’s dictatorship by any means possible. Why not use a printing press? That’s how five Spanish political refugees headed by José Martínez saw it in Paris in 1961. And that’s how the Ruedo Ibérico imprint was born, which later became a magazine and bookstore that existed until 1980. The press published works by Hispanophiles (Jackson, Thomas, Gibson, etc.), essayists, and protagonists of the Spanish Civil War who were unable to put out their works in Spain. Almost 150 titles were released. Now, the publisher Backlist will annually re-issue three of the most emblematic texts from this historic catalog, with new introductions, bibliographies, and corrections when necessary. The work began with El eco de los pasos, the memoirs of Juan García Oliver, anarchist and former republican Minister. Another classic work on the background of the Spanish Civil War, The Spanish Labyrinth by English Hispanophile Gerald Brennan, will follow in its wake this January.
“It’s an arrangment with Marianne Brull, Ruedo Ibérico’s editor and current representative: they gave us the titles so that we can re-release them with additional content,” said Daniel Cladera, Blacklist’s editorial director. Brull penned the prologue of Brenan’s book, which will contain a new bibliography, index of names, and maps. Historian Bernat Muniesa added commentary on García Oliver’s work.
But time has left its mark, especially on a catalog born of such strong ideologically convictions. “Some texts have either been surpassed or are very enmeshed in the anarcho-syndicalist or communists worlds from which they emerged, even though they’re still invaluable,” Cladera stated, pointing to one legendary book that is already ready for republication: Diary of the War in Spain by Mijail Koktsov, one of the best Russian journalists during the conflict, who was also probably Stalin’s eyes and ears, until the Soviet leader had him detained in 1938 and then executed four years later.
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This essay first appeared in El País, on December 6, 2008. Translation by Comrade C.
The following video shows Juan García Oliver speaking (in Spanish) about the era of pistolerismo in Barcelona prior to the Spanish Civil War: