Anarchist adventure stories?

November 18, 2007 8:11 PM

Pre-Spanish Civil War anarchist pulp adventure novels?

In George Orwell's Boys' Weeklies essay, there is this passage:

In the last years of the Spanish monarchy there was a large output in Spain of left-wing novelettes, some of them evidently of Anarchist origin. Unfortunately at the time when they were appearing I did not see their social significance, and I lost the collection of them that I had, but no doubt copies would still be procurable. In get-up and style of story they were very similar to the English fourpenny novelette, except that their inspiration was 'left'. If, for instance, a story described police pursing Anarchists through the mountains, it would be from the point of view of the Anarchists and not the police.

This intrigued me, but I haven't been able to find any other reference to these. I could easily be looking in the wrong places, though. So, did these actually exist as Orwell describes them? And if so, is there any more information on them available in English? And, though I'm guessing they don't, do any English translations of the actual stories exist?

posted by a louis wain cat to media & arts (3 comments total)

I'm guessing the dictatorship eradicated not just the novels but the editorial houses. Have googled in Spanish with very little result. Will keep trying.
posted by Wilder at 10:15 PM on November 18, 2007

They were known as La Novela Ideal (scroll down to the name Juan Montseny and read from there). The Montseny family were the publishers. I can find no trace of English translations of these novels.
posted by Wilder at 10:29 PM on November 18, 2007

Ramon J Sender's Seven Red Sundays was translated into English; not read it myself yet and I realise it's not exactly the type of thing you have in mind but might interesting to you.
posted by Abiezer at 12:40 AM on November 19, 2007