Abstract

This paper highlights the characteristics that have created a fighter for freedom. The study analyses the main works of Brenan and their publishing houses. Brenan had fought against the authoritarianism of his father and social class to choose a life on his own. Thus, he decided to become a writer. Brenan was in Spain when the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936 and he had to return to England. The military uprising had made him committed to the Republican Cause. He analysed the background of this war in “The Spanish Labyrinth” (1943). Later, he wrote “The Literature of the Spanish People” (1951). Accordingly, Brenan’s reputation as a Hispanist was established and was offered the “Alfonso XIII Chair of Spanish” at Oxford, but he refused the proposal. In 1949, Brenan toured Spain and searched Lorca´s grave, then he penned “The Face of Spain” (1950). In 1953, despite his controversial publications, Brenan was allowed to settle in his villa in Málaga, Spain. Here, Brenan’s myth was born in his autobiographical work “South from Granada” (1957): a young man who leaves the enslaving modern society and seeks his way in the mountains. “The Spanish Labyrinth” was translated into Spanish by Ruedo Ibérico (1962) and “The Literature of the Spanish People” by Losada (1958). Both publishing houses were owned by professionals and intellectuals sympathetic to the Republican Cause who were in exile. Brenan agrees with a pro-democracy and anti-communist Anglo-American discourse within the context of the Cold War and next to the Congress for Cultural Freedom. Brenan’s books were banned in Spain, but they were a cry for freedom against Francoist censorship and seed for other researchers. Brenan came to represent a way of liberation. Brenan’s fight is alive on the twenty-first century web.