South from Granada

by Gerald Brenan (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1980

  $3.30

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $3.69

  Gerald Brenan is generally regarded as the greatest of English writers about Spain. South from Granada describes the essence of a remote rural area before the Civil War with vivid sympathy. Here, brought back to life, are the festivals and folk-lore of the Sierra Nevada, the rivalries, romances and courtship rituals, the village customs, superstitions and characters. Equally compelling are chapters on Granada in the twenties, food and the Phoenicians, the cheap brothels and archaeological remains of Almeria, the stark but haunting mountain scenery and even a visit from Virginia Woolf. The result was acclaimed on publication as a masterpiece; it remains a classic, richly evocative account of a lost way of life.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $11.19

  Part autobiography, part travelogue, and wholly a tribute to the unspoilt beauty of southern Spain, Gerald Brenan's South from Granada includes an introduction by Chris Stewart, author of the bestselling Driving Over Lemons, in Penguin Modern Classics. Between 1920 and 1934, Gerald Brenan lived in the remote Spanish village of Yegen and South of Granada depicts his time there, vividly evoking the essence of his rural surroundings and the Spanish way of life before the Civil War. Here he portrays the landscapes, festivals and folk-lore of the Sierra Nevada, the rivalries, romances and courtship rituals, village customs, superstitions and characters. Fascinating details emerge, from cheap brothels to archaeological remains, along with visits from Brenan's friends from the Bloomsbury group - Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf among them. Knowledgeable, elegant and sympathetic, this is a rich account of Spain's vanished past. Gerald Brenan (1894-1987) was an English writer who spent much of his life in Spain. He is best known for The Spanish Labyrinth, a work of history on the background to the Spanish Civil War and for South From Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village. He was awarded a CBE in 1982, and was much honoured in Spain If you enjoyed South from Granada, you might like Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'The best of Brenan's books: he has a true and proper knowledge of the culture he describes' Cyril Connolly, Sunday Times 'A brilliant interpreter of Spain to the rest of the world' The Times