Behind the Spanish Barricades, by John Langdon-Davies to be published in Spanish

As 2008 goes by and 2009 comes closer, we are very happy of announcing the deal for Spanish rights of John Langdon-Davies 'Behind the Spanish Barricades'. A book originally written in 1936 by one of the most reputated UK journalists of his time. The book will be released by Península Ediciones in 2009, during the 70th anniversary of the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

'Behind the Spanish Barricades' was originally published in the UK in 1936 and the new publishing house Reportage Press reissued it in 2007.

Langdon-Davies came to Spain to report on the May Day celebrations in Madrid for the British newspaper 'News Chronicle'. By the time he returned in August, the Civil War had broken out and many of those he had seen celebrating now lay dead. 

On this second trip in August 1936 he drove into Spain on his motorbike with his fifteen-year-old son. In five weeks, and from behind the Republican barricades, Langdon-Davies wrote this extraordinary eyewitness account, now republished for the first time after the original 1936 edition. It chronicles not only the atrocities of war in differents regions of Spain such as Madrid, Aragón or Catalonia and episodes such as the bloody siege of Toledo’s Alcázar, but also the human face of the conflict - and even its comic moments.

John Langdon-Davies (1897-1971) was a journalist, war correspondent and author of more than forty books. A man of boundless curiosity, he wrote prolifically and his many works include: Dancing Catalans (1929) a study of the Sardana, the emotionally and politically charged national dance of Catalonia; Air Raid (1938) and Finland: the First Total War (1940). In 1937 he co-founded the charity Plan International along with aid worker Eric Muggeridge.

Some of his Works have also been published in Catalana: : La setmana tràgica de 1937 i altres vivències de la guerra civil a Catalunya : els fets de maig (Edicions 62, 1987); and Mites i felicitat dels catalans (Pagès Editors 1988).

The first chapter, in English, of Behind the Spanish Barricades is available in the following link: http://www.reportagepress.com/pdf/pdf-book-17.pdf

‘The book, written like a true journalist in five weeks, is a very vivid portrayal of the front line and is an authentic piece of war reporting (…) by an extraordinary man’.
- Nigel Chapman, Director General of the BBC World Service.

‘John Langdon-Davies’ Behind the Spanish Barricades remains such a vauable work seventy years alter its first publication’.
- Paul Preston, London School of Economics

The Spanish rights deal has been made by SalmaiaLit on behalf of Il Caduceo Literary Agency.