About the Book
Spanish by birth, Parisian by adoption, Semprún (1923-2011) was a legendary figure on the front lines of twentieth-century European history. During the first half of his life he was an exile of the Spanish Civil War, a member of the French Resistance, a Nazi camp survivor, and clandestine agent for the Spanish Communist Party. After repeatedly risking his life from the 1930s to the 1960s, he reinvented himself as a prolific writer who turned the extraordinary material from his own life into a series of autobiographical novels, beginning with The Long Voyage, his 1963 masterpiece about his deportation to Buchenwald. Semprún was equally at home amongst the madrileños of his childhood, fellow prisoners of the Buchenwald concentration camp, politicians, and artists and writers, such as his close friend Yves Montand or Gabriel García Márquez. He is best known internationally as a prize-winning novelist and memoirist, and an Oscar-nominated screenwriter. In collaboration with Alain Resnais and Costa-Gavras he wrote the screenplays for, respectively, La guerre est finie and Z. In Spain, his extraordinary achievements were recognised when in 1988 he was named Minister of Culture. The research for this biography draws on archival materials from Spain, France, Germany, the United States and Russia; it includes many interviews with family members, close friends, politicians, and artists including former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González, and film director Costa Gavras. Published in association with the Canada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies.
About the Author :
Soledad Fox Maura is Professor of Spanish, Comparative Literature, and affiliated faculty in the Jewish Studies Program at Williams College, Massachusetts. She is the author of two other books: A Spanish Woman in Love and War: Constancia de la Mora and Flaubert and Don Quijote: The Influence of Cervantes on Madame Bovary; and many articles and reviews. She has been interviewed by the BBC, Radio Sefarad, The New Yorker, El Mundo, El País, Europa Press, and Radio Nacional de España on her biographical work.
Review :
After reading this lively and intriguing biography, Im amazed that most of us know so little about Jorge Semprun, even though weve likely seen films that he inspired or wrote. This man of great zest, talent and courage who played so many roles in the crises of his timeunderground resister, novelist, cabinet minister and more--reminds me of no one so much as Andre Malraux. Its a pleasure to have his remarkable life now available to us in English. - Adam Hochschild, author of Spain in Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Jorge Semprun packed four or five lives into one. Artist, prisoner, freedom fighter, diplomat, organizer--in his 87 years he quite literally embodied the story of a whole continent. Soledad Fox's superb biography tells his story with clarity, grace, and high style, just as Semprun lived. This is an essential book, biography and history told with novelistic precision. - Jonathan Blitzer, The New Yorker
In this fascinating biography, Soledad Fox demonstrates how Sempruns many lives not only fueled his writing, but also freed him to reinvent them as auto-fiction. No less important, Fox throws the spotlight on a man little known in the English-speaking world whose extraordinary life and literature mirror the multiple traumas of Europes 20th century. - Alan Riding, author of And The Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris (Knopf)
The most complete possible portrait of an intense and complex life, a voyage through the 20th century seen through the eyes of one of Spains most internationally relevant and well-known intellectuals. Andres Seoane, June 6, 2016. El Cultural, El Mundo
This is a very well written biography, thoroughly researched, and both passionate and dispassionate at the same time. Highly recommended. - Jose Maria Noguerol, Interviu. September 9, 2016
With the precision of a surgeon, Soledad Fox Maurabrings to life the voice of the unforgettable author of Le grand voyage, and former Minister of Culture. - Josep Maria Cortes, Alternativas Economicas
This is an excellent biography that will be of great interest to all those readers who have been fascinated by the life and writing of Jorge Semprun. Soledad Fox Maura writes respectfully, but without shirking the controversial aspects of Sempruns life. And she brings new facts to light. A good biography is one that transforms its subject into a person made of flesh and blood. The operation may cause certain readers to feel disenchanted. I am sure, however, that for most readers of this biography, the figure of Jorge Semprun will not lose any of its power. What is made clearer than ever is that Semprun had a very difficult life. He risked it on more than one occasion, and he always survived, something which would be unfair to hold against him. He lived intensely, on the front lines of the great upheavals of the European 20th Century. And he then had the talent, the intelligence, and the knowledge to turn the ensemble of his books into one of the most accurate chronicles of the period. What would we know about the Europe we have just left behind without the work of Semprun, Koestler, London, and other survivors? - Agusti Pons, Nuvol, September 26, 2016
Professor Soledad Fox Maura has published Ida y vuelta. La vida de Jorge Semprun (Debate), a biography of the former Spanish politician that aims to humanize him and to recover the recognition of his figure in Spain, where he was not always well received.The author, a specialist in history and literature of the Spanish Civil War, struck upon her interest in this personality who was an irresistible Pandoras box.Fox has interviewed nearly fifty people who knew Semprun, and the book has close to 400 footnotes. The author, who met the politician through mutual acquaintances, says that the book required a total commitment on her part, and that she tried to put together the jigsaw puzzle of someone who led multiple lives. - Europa Press, Published in La Vanguardia, May 20, 2016.
This biography dives into the secrets and pain of Jorge Semprun. Soledad Fox Maura has published a study that pays special attention to the childhood of the Spanish author and Buchenwald concentration camp survivorHis struggle was full of shadows; Fox unveils, diminishes, or disproves them. - Juan Cruz, El Pais, 11 de mayo, 2016
Soledad Fox Mauras biography sheds light on the darker corners of this intellectuals life, and puts words where there was only silence. - Javier Ors, La Razon, may 20, 2016
After years of research, Soledad Fox Maura has just published Ida y vuelta: La vida de Jorge Semprun (Debate-Penguin Random House), an up-to-date and complete biography of the Spanish writer, politician, and intellectual. Ida y vuelta offers a panoramic vision of Semprun, a complex figure who constantly played at inventing and reinventing himself; first, by becoming Federico Sanchez, and second, through literature. He turned his life into fiction, and fiction into life. - Anna Maria Iglesia, El Asombrario, El Publico, September 9, 2016
This biography by Fox Maura, originally written in Englishis a vindication of Sempruns relevanceIt is also a complement to what he tells in his own books. It fills in the gaps, and contextualizes his own memories. - Sara Barderas, dpa, Sin embargo, Mexico. May 21, 2016
Ida y vuelta. La vida de Jorge Semprun is the is the best biography written about Jorge Semprun. It is by Soledad Fox Maura and was published by Debate. - Julia Saez-Angulo, Euromundo Global, June 30, 2016
Soledad Fox Mauras exhaustive and excellent researchover five years worthcovers the multifaceted and personal experiences of this emblematic protagonist of the 20th century. She raises a number of crucial questions, and offers many answers, all of which are backed up by primary materials, and an objective outlook. She is precise, inspiring, and her prose is fluid and a pleasure to read. A highly recommended volume, packed with exciting and emotionally charged events. - Jorge de Arco, Andalucia Informacion, 28 de septiembre, 2016.
Soledad Fox Maura says that when she reads Jorge Semprun she imagines a Humphrey Bogart-like narrator, an inscrutable hero with his trench coat collar turned up. But in real life nobody is like Bogart, not even SemprunHence this biography. - Luis Alemany, El Mundo, May 22, 2016
In this biography, Soledad Fox Maura analyzes the life of this intellectual, who was also Minister of Culture, and who loved Spain more than it loved him - Manel Manchon, Economia Digital, July 1, 2016
