Antoine Gimenez’s Memories of the War in Spain

The Giménologues (ed.) & Paul Sharkey (tr.)     2019     732p     6 x 9

“A fascinating memoir of the Spanish Civil War as well as a new approach to writing history, The Sons of Night is two books in one. First is Antoine Gimenez’s Memories of the War in Spain, a compelling and lyrical account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. The other is In Search of the Sons of Night by the Gimenologues, a group of friends who became historians over the twelve-year adventure of publishing Gimenez’s memoir.

The second book, a profoundly innovative form of historiography, records the fascination Gimenez’s account held for the group and the many branching paths of inquiry it led them down. The latter begins with eighty-two ‘endnotes’ to the memoir, each the equivalent of a chapter that follows a particular historical thread or explores a question raised by Gimenez’s text. This is followed by the biographies of various people appearing in the memoir, many based on the friendships the historians formed with the now-elderly revolutionaries. The book closes with an Afterword discussing theoretical issues raised by the memoir and seven appendices. It also includes a foreword by Dolors Marín Silvestre.”

$18-25