The readers of My Mother, That Stranger, Letters from the Spanish Civil War, already know about how Concha Alborg found the letters between her parents. They are familiar with the surprising personality that her mother showed in these letters compared with the mother she knew growing up in Franco’s Spain. In her father’s case, he seemed to be already formed as the writer he would become. His complex personality, his descriptive style and his existential ideas foreshadowed the man she knew as a father.
A Portrait of the young Writer, written in Spanish, is a chronological edition of Juan Luis Alborg’s letters during the time he was serving in the Republican Front against Franco’s forces. This correspondence is primarily the love story of a soldier who is waiting for the Spanish Civil War to end to marry his beloved. Although it is also a testimony of the Spanish historical memory and it serves as a socio-political document.
Concha Alborg, an academic and a writer as her father, develops the thesis that these letters should be considered as the narrative work that Juan Luis Alborg wanted to write, but he did not realize due to his eminent work as a historian of Spanish literature. The literary value of these letters is evident in the young writer since he already had an extensive humanistic education.
José Teruel, specialist on unpublished letter collections, writes the prologue within a theoretical framework. This book is published by the Universitat de Valencia Publicacions and the University of Málaga Press, where all of Juan Luis Alborg’s books and documents are housed and where he was born respectively
RETRATO DEL JOVEN ESCRITOR JUAN LUIS ALBORG
EPISTOLARIO DURANTE LA GUERRA CIVIL
CONTENTS / ÍNDICE
PRÓLOGO. NARRAR UN TIEMPO PERDIDO
Por JOSÉ TERUEL
INTRODUCCIÓN. EL HOMBRE DETRÁS DE LAS CARTAS
CAPÍTULO I. EL JOVEN ESCRITOR
CAPÍTULO II. LOS PRIMEROS MESES EN EL FRENTE DEL SUR
Julio 1937 – diciembre, 1937
CAPÍTULO III. EN LA PROVINCIA DE JAÉN
Enero – junio, 1938
CAPÍTULO IV. EN LA PROVINCIA DE VALENCIA
Junio – diciembre, 1938
CAPÍTULO V. LOS TRES MESES DE 1939
CONCLUSIÓN. TRAS LAS HUELLAS DEL PADRE
BIBLIOGRAFÍA.
PRESS RELEASE:
Portrait of the Young Writer Juan Luis Alborg in his Letters During the Spanish Civil War. Málaga: UMA Editorial, 2023.
The collected letters of Juan Luis Alborg during the Spanish Civil War are similar and unique compared to the many other letters that have been published in the last few years. This correspondence is similar because it describes the years of the Spanish Civil War and the existential situation of a young soldier who is anticipating a happy life with his fiancée. And it is unique because he is also foreseeing his career as a writer, before becoming the literary historian and critic as he is known today.
The book is organized in five chapters in chronological order from the summer of 1937, when Juan Luis is drafted, until the end of the war in April 1939. First, he was stationed in Valdepeñas and later in the South Republican Front of Jaén province.
The last few months of the war were particularly difficult in the psychological sense, despite being in Valencia province, the place of his birth.
Aside from its indisputable testimonial and biographical importance, the collected letters in this work can be incorporated into the corpus that forms the Spanish historical memory and cultural heritage.