Abstract
On its publication in October 1940, Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls
was widely acclaimed but caused anger and dismay among supporters of
the defeated Spanish Republic, starting with veterans of the Abraham
Lincoln Brigade. For them, the most egregious passage in the novel was
Hemingway’s portrayal of André Marty, chief political commissar of the
International Brigades, as a bloodthirsty ‘crazy’: ‘está loco’, say all
those who encounter him. This article places the reception of the novel
and the reputation of Marty in the context of the tortuous history of
the communist movement. Drawing on the press, memoirs, historiography
and Marty’s own private papers, we see how the contrasting fortunes of
the novelist and the communist leader illustrate a ‘craziness’ which For Whom the Bell Tolls both captures and anticipates.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 1-19 |
Number of pages | 19 |
Journal | Forum for Modern Language Studies |
Volume | 55 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 21 Sept 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2019 |
Keywords
- Spanish Civil War
- Communism
- Franco - American relations
- Historical fiction
- Memory