Book description
After twelve years in Spain, Jason Webster had developed a deep love
for his adopted homeland; his life there seemed complete. But when he
and his Spanish wife moved into an idyllic old farmhouse in the
mountains north of Valencia, by chance he found an unmarked mass grave
from the Spanish Civil War on his doorstep. Spurred to investigate the
history of the Civil War, a topic many of his Spanish friends still
seemed to treat as taboo, he began to uncover a darker side to the
country. Witness to a brutal fist-fight sponsored by remnants of
Franco's Falangists, arrested and threatened by the police in the
former HQ of the Spanish Foreign Legion, sheltered by a beautiful
transvestite, shunned by locals, haunted by ghosts and finally robbed
of his identity, Webster encountered a legacy of cruelty and violence
that seems to linger on seventy years after the bloody events of that war.
As in Webster's previous books, Duende and Andalus,
¡Guerra! reveals the essence of modern Spain, which few
outsiders ever manage to see. Fascinating true stories from the Civil
War, vividly retold as he travels around the country. Yet the more
Webster unveils of the passions that set one countryman against
another, the more he is led to wonder: could the dark, primitive
currents that ripped the country apartin the 1930s still be stirring
under the sophisticated, worldly surface of today's Spain?
Jason Webster was born in San Francisco in 1970 and grew up in
England and Germany. After studying Arabic at Oxford and living for
several years in Italy and Egypt, he went to Spain to learn to play
the flamenco guitar. He currently lives in Valencia with his Spanish
wife. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Duende and Andalus.
www. jasonwebster. net
