Franco's Crypt

Jeremy Treglown questions the popular belief that nothing truthful or artistically worthwhile could be created under Franco's dictatorship in Spain, a view held both at home and abroad. He argues that such oversimplifications have fed a related myth: that Spaniards agreed as a nation to forget the atrocities committed by Franco's side, which is presented as the only side responsible.

The book points out that foreign accounts of the Spanish Civil War, such as Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, have often been judged more believable than Spanish ones. Treglown reminds readers that the conflict was Spain's own war and notes that the country has recently taken a more open approach to its modern past. The work considers how this process is unfolding and what role the idea of historical memory plays in it.

Drawing on monuments, paintings, public works, novels, films and video games, Treglown shows that events of the period were recorded in detail despite state censorship. He also discusses the claim that censorship can sometimes benefit literature and how memory differs from history.

The book is aimed at readers interested in modern Spanish history, the Spanish Civil War and the relationship between culture and public memory. Treglown is a British writer and critic who has written widely on literature and has been an editor of the Times Literary Supplement.