The vertiginous lesson. Pablo de la Torriente Brau in the Spanish Civil War

Abstract

Pablo de la Torriente Brau is an emblematic figure among the Latin-American correspondents during the Spanish Civil War. This paper restores the journey that leads the Cuban writer and journalist around the country at war turning him, in a few weeks, into a Republican combatant who meets his death in December 1936. Based on the examination of the chronicles he wrote from Spain, various shifts in the nature and style of the writer are analysed: physical shift from abroad to the epicentre of war, and shift from correspondent to conscript. Additionally, the analysis of his collected letters show other aspects of writing that differ from his journalistic texts. Lastly, this essay highlights the conversion of Pablo de la Torriente Brau into a myth after his early death that, apart from generating a large number of tributes in his memory, gave origin to a stream of chronicles, elegies, poems, and all sort of texts from varied authors.