Description
Between 1920 and 1934, the author lived in the remote Spanish village of Yegen. This book depicts his time there, evoking the essence of his rural surroundings and the Spanish way of life before the Civil War. It portrays the landscapes, festivals and folk-lore of the Sierra Nevada, the rivalries, village customs, superstitions and characters.
About the Author
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. Chris Stewart is the author of Driving Over Lemons, which told the story of how Chris set up home in Spain to farm sheep and oranges and it went on to become an international best-seller. The ‘sort-of’ sequel A Parrot In The Pepper Tree followed in 2002 and continued the success of the first book. 2006 saw the publication of Chris’ third book The Almond Blossom Society.
Review:
“First off, this is not the sort of book I’d normally read. However, I was going to Granada and saw of its (the book’s) existence and thought it might be interesting. I loved it. A book written in the early 1950’s about the author’s life in a small Andalusian village in the early 1920’s (when he was in his 20’s, living frugally on his officer’s pension from his service in WWI). He writes easily, and whilst his descriptions in general can verge on the stereotypical, this doesn’t detract from the acuity of his writing. The way he draws the various people he spends time with is very clear. There’s a particularly great chapter about a night he spent in Almeria, and his gentle writing occasionally serves up some wonderfully dry humour. I only wish he’d been a travel writer; I’d read his entire back catalogue if that were the case.
“First off, this is not the sort of book I’d normally read. However, I was going to Granada and saw of its (the book’s) existence and thought it might be interesting. I loved it. A book written in the early 1950’s about the author’s life in a small Andalusian village in the early 1920’s (when he was in his 20’s, living frugally on his officer’s pension from his service in WWI). He writes easily, and whilst his descriptions in general can verge on the stereotypical, this doesn’t detract from the acuity of his writing. The way he draws the various people he spends time with is very clear. There’s a particularly great chapter about a night he spent in Almeria, and his gentle writing occasionally serves up some wonderfully dry humour. I only wish he’d been a travel writer; I’d read his entire back catalogue if that were the case.
If you can’t help but judge past writing through a modern lens, you may not find this book as charming as I did, but if you can accept it for what it is, written when it was, by a man of his time, then I absolutely recommend it. It was like finding a treasure at the back of the attic.”
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