Soledad Fox

"In this gripping, authoritative biography, Soledad Fox Maura reveals the tumultuous true-life story of the Oscar-winning screenwriter responsible for Z and The War Is Over. A man of many faces, Jorge Semprún perfectly personified the struggles and successes of twentieth-century Europe. Semprún enjoyed a privileged childhood as the grandson of Spanish prime minister, Antonio Maura, until his world was shattered by the political strife of the Spanish Civil War and he went into exile. Facing dangers rarely seen outside the action movies of Hollywood, Semprún adopted a resilient spirit and rebel's stance. He fought with the French Resistance in World War II and survived imprisonment at Buchenwald. After the war, he became an organising member of the exiled Spanish communist party, maintaining the appearance of a normal civilian life while keeping one step ahead of Francisco Franco's secret police for years. Semprún later put his experiences on paper, becoming an internationally acclaimed author and screenwriter."--

"This book tells the story of how Flaubert's admiration for Cervantes' Don Quijote unfolded, and how profoundly it shaped and influenced the writer's approach to all his major works, beginning with his breakthrough novel Madame Bovary. Several cultural and personal factors converged to establish the prominent place of Don Quijote in Flaubert's imagination, but it is the profound parallels between the two novels that clearly illustrate how Don Quijote permeates Madame Bovary in both subject and approach. One such parallel is Alonso Quijano and Emma Bovary's desire to imitate fiction, which reflects a kind of literary madness in which the attempt to impose the narrative conventions of romances on life only leads hero and heroine, respectively, to destruction, disappointment, and ultimately death. Soledad Fox's study situates each author in his respective historical and aesthetic context, and provides key examples of how the French author penetrated deeply into Cervantes' novelistic approach and how his relationship to Don Quijote directly shaped his success at the crux of his career."--Jacket.

Biografía de Constancia de la Mora Maura.