A Civil War of Words

The Great War did not only mark the history of the twentieth century: to a large extent, the conflict also affected culture and literature in Europe and the rest of the world. This collection of essays aims to provide the reader with a broad and transdisciplinary perspective on the cultural and political impact of the Great War. Using a comparative approach and focusing on Catalonia and Spain, this volume reflects the enormous variety of representations of the ‘theatre of war’ in both neutral and belligerent countries, causing a significant rejuvenation in fiction and journalistic genres in the subsequent decades.
This book features essays by some of the most important specialists in the First World War from Spain, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Latin America, who, in the centenary of the conflict, provide an innovative critical approach to this crucial event in contemporary history.

Xavier Pla is Senior Lecturer of Catalan Contemporary Literature and Theory of Literature and Head of the Department of Philology and Communication at Universitat de Girona. The main focus of his research is on diaries, memoirs, everyday-life literature and, more specifically, literary journalism in interwar Europe. He has edited and written introductions for many volumes by Eugeni d’Ors, Josep Pla, Eugeni Xammar, Jorge Semprun or Claudio Magris.
Maximiliano Fuentes is Associate Lecturer of Contemporary History at Universitat de Girona. He specializes in the political relations between Spain and France during the Great War, Spanish intellectuals and the war, and cultural relations between Argentina and Spain during the first decades of the twentieth century.
Francesc Montero is Assistant Scholar of Contemporary Literature and project manager at Universitat de Girona. His research focuses mainly on literary journalism under the Spanish Republic and before and after the Spanish civil war.