Franco's Ghost

Here's a few additional resources on the Spanish Civil War in case you wanted to put our August book, Watcher in the Pine, in context. Google Cultural Institute has an easily digestible multimedia spread that gives you the basics. For a little additional period color, you can watch The Spanish Earth, a 1937 pro-Republican propaganda film narrated by Ernest Hemingway. If you'd like a little more depth, try this podcast from the BBC In Our Time Series.

As with many divisive periods in a nation's life (I'm thinking of our recent reading of Anna Funder's Stasiland about East and West Germany) the process of reconciliation is ongoing. Just this year, Amnesty International released a report, "Time Passes, Impunity Remains", criticizing the Spanish government for blocking investigations into Franco-era crimes,

“The fact that Spain is neither investigating nor cooperating with proceedings relating to crimes committed during the Civil War by both parties to the conflict or under Franco is a slap in the face of all the relatives of those who were abused and disappeared at the time,” said Esteban Beltrán, Director of Amnesty International Spain. 

“We have seen a tendency for these cases to be closed without further investigation but the situation has worsened recently after the Supreme Court ruled that it was not for Spanish judges to prosecute these crimes. The only avenue of judicial investigation available in Spain it seems to be shut down.”

Amnesty is urging authorities in Spain to investigate and prosecute crimes or offences under international law and to assist fully with any request for cooperation it receives from foreign courts that decide to investigate these crimes.  For more on how Spaniards are confronting the legacy of the Franco era, watch "Franco's Ghost" above.

Our August Author: Rebecca Pawel

It's time to get to know Rebecca Pawel, author of our enaging "Mystery Month" selection Watcher in the Pine.  First stop is her website, Rebeccapawel.com, which has the usual biography and info about her other books. In the Links section, she has helpful pointers to the sources she consulted to create the Spanish Civil War setting for her books, something I was curious about, but unfortunately many of the links are now defunct. This one which will give you a little tour of Liébana and Potes, still works.  The New York Sun also has a brief profile of the Pawel here.  Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of interviews with this author available online. Fellow crime fiction writer Cara Black gets her on record with her favorite writers and films and other assorted trivia here, but the most interesting stuff can be found at Morpheme Tales where she discusses creating the central character, Tejada, how she worked to get the historical details right and the reception of her first book Death of a Nationalist, in Spain. Probably the best news is that although she has completed the Tejada series, her next book will be in Renaissance Flanders during the Eighty Years War. I'm not sure that's going to bring her back to Rights Readers, but it'll be on my personal "to read" list for sure.

Back to Picasso's War

I was excited we chose Rebecca Pawel's Watcher in the Pine as our "Mystery Month" selection thinking it was great that we were going to discuss a new topic, the Spanish Civil War. Somehow, I had completely forgotten how much we had enjoyed reading Russell Martin's Picasso's War: The Destruction of Guernica and the Masterpiece That Changed the World. If you want to jog your memory about the painting, the book and the history behind it in preparation for reading this month's mystery, the Picasso's War website is a fun place to start.

For more visuals of the era, check out UCSD's collection of posters from the Spanish Civil War or Columbia University's collection of children's drawings from the period.  I would love to find more books like Picasso's War that offer great works of art as an entry point into a discussion of history and human rights. Let me know if you know of any or nominate some works of art for this treatment in comments!

Rights Rhythm: Defeat Facism with Pete Seeger!

Let's warm up for the discussion of our August mystery, Rebecca Pawel's Watcher in the Pine, set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War with a recent performance of Pete Seeger and grandson performing in front of a massive audience in Barcelona in the video above. Pete recalls the solidarity album he and other American anti-fascists helped put together in 1943, Songs of the Spanish Civil War 1: Lincoln Brigade, and urges the crowd on just as vigorously as back in the day. Pete would want you to sing along: find the lyrics here. Sample the original album below. Rumba la rumba la rumba la!