Perez-Reverte tells the young Civil War – Correo del Caroni

Madrid .- “I have no ideology, my library.” This forceful said Friday the writer Arturo Perez-Reverte during the presentation of “The Civil War told the young people,” a piece that seeks to “refresh the undisputed elements” of the black chapter of recent Spanish history.

surprised that a textbook summarizing the life of Antonio Machado as “very good Spanish poet who died in France,” the author of “Captain Alatriste” decided to take action on the matter. And according to the writer and academic, by the desire to “protect” the atrocities of the conflict “young people are becoming orphaned memory.”

Very critical of the content currently they taught in the schools, Perez-Reverte insisted that “education remove the dark and tragic aspects is a mistake.” “We believe that hiding the reality we protect children, and what we do is leave them defenseless”, as “much more manipulated for any cliché or tweet,” he added returns. “Hide the tragedy is even worse than contárselas evil”.

“The Civil War told the young” (Alfaguara), which has just gone on sale illustrated by Fernando Vicente, the writer sums less 150-page vision of the tragedy that left Spain two between 1936 and 1939, continued during the Franco dictatorship and began to rebuild in the late 70s with the transition to democracy.

Overall, Perez-Reverte will disclose the conflict, its causes and consequences protagonists in 30 short chapters that has avoided adjectives and trials to focus on the facts, to compose a text “concise and clean,” he said. All this complete with a glossary, a chronology of “key moments” and several maps on territorial division.

“For every half page 20 folios have been reduced and crossing,” he said. Therefore, the book has nothing to do with his series of articles “A History of Spain”. “There I am reviewing and my character, this is something else,” said the writer of “Comanche Territory”, famous for not biting his tongue in her columns or through social networks in addressing thorny issues.

“No one doubts, because it is evident that there was an illegitimate coup d’etat against a legitimate government,” he said. But “from there, there was a collective responsibility of both sides in the tragedy” and now many of their witnesses can not tell, “it is a gray and murky territory where it is easy to handle and talk about perverse Falangists hordes of ‘red’ “.

A clear vision

As a former war correspondent who covered among other strife in Bosnia, Eritrea and Sudan, Perez -Reverte said who knows how far the human condition. “In Spain there was dignity and courage, but cowardice on both sides.” What happens today, he added, “it is that we have gone to extremes in which not even acknowledge the other the least of the virtues”.

So he has pulled “library” uniting the “indisputable” for the two opposing Spains and what international match or historians Antony Beevor Paul Preston. He said that the “spiritual godfather of the book” is the Spanish journalist Manuel Chaves Nogales (“With Fire and Sword. Heroes, beasts and martyrs of Spain”), the man “more clarity” portrayed the contest.

And today, he said, “they have replaced political historians”. Something “serious”, because sometimes they are “about to become uneducated influence any argument to be put to shot.” All this considering that “there is a huge difference in the intellectual weight with politicians 40 years ago,” he said.

Yet he also intends to “replace” the history books, but “He opened a door that encourages the teacher and the student to get into the issue,” he said. Its aim is that “The Civil War told the young” is “a tool”, the “incentive” for any student understands “it was not a conflict of good and bad” but something much more complex.

“We must make lucid citizens,” he added, “and lucidity becomes memory and knowledge.” In parallel with the launch of the book, the ABC Museum in Madrid until December hosts an exhibition that can be seen in the original artwork for the book Vicente, made of acrylic and in which plasma with the sobriety of gray and sepia the horror of the tragedy. (DPA)