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Homage to Manuel Chaves Nogales
From April 01, 2013 until April 09, 2013
On the occasion of the publication of his book "Ifni, la última aventura colonial española" ("Ifni, Spain’s Last Colonial Adventure"), Casa Árabe and the publishing house Almuzara have organized an event devoted to this Spanish author.
The event, which will be held on Tuesday, April 9 at 7:00 p.m. in the Casa Árabe Auditorium in Madrid (at Calle Alcalá, 62), will include the participation of Manuel Pimentel, an editor at Almuzara, Eduardo López Busquets, the General Director of Casa Árabe, and Juan Manuel Riesgo, a professor at the King Juan Carlos Humanities Institute and Vice-President of the Spanish Association of Africanists.
The publishing house Almuzara, after several publications by Sevillian writer Manuel Chaves Nogales, including “La ciudad” (“The City”), “Bajo el signo de la esvástica” (“Under the Sign of the Swastika”) and “Andalucía roja y la Blanca Paloma” (“Red Andalusia and the Dove”), is making its way back into bookstores with a new title: “Ifni, la última aventura colonial española” (“Ifni, Spain’s Last Colonial Adventure”). The book is a magnificent and ample report which Chaves Nogales provided for the newspaper Ahora in April and May 1934, in which he accompanied a meager Spanish expeditionary force in its occupation of the Moroccan territory of Ifni, located on the southwestern coast, just above the Western Sahara, as ordered by the government of the Spanish Republic.
At this event, Casa Árabe and the publishing house Almuzara will be paying homage to this essential figure in the history of Spanish journalism, Manuel Chaves Nogales, whose chronicles and books have contributed to forging our memory of the twentieth century.
Today he is one of the references in twentieth-century Spanish literature and journalism. In 1921, just as he was leaving the publication of his first book prepared, “La ciudad” (“The City”), dedicated to examining the complex soul of his home town, he left for Madrid, with a stopover in Cordoba, to start his career in the changing world of journalism. As the editor-in-chief of El Heraldo and director of Ahora, he became the greatest of role models in journalism in the era of the Spanish Republic, even becoming an interlocutor of President Azaña’s. In those years, he reached the highest achievements in journalism with his great reports on Morocco and his denunciation of Bolshevik Russia and fascist regimes. His literary works, which lie somewhere between journalism and the novel, include several fascinating works on Russian topics, and in 1935 he achieved a huge publishing success with the very well-known journalistic series on Juan Belmonte in La Estampa and La Nación, which would later be published as a book and grant him international fame. With the war, he had to leave Spain, and after a time in Paris, where he wrote a large part of his book “La agonía de Francia” (“France’s Agony,” 1941), he took up residence in London, where he would continue his work in international frontline journalism. In this climate of war and exile, and with his health waning, an unfortunate surgical intervention led to his death while he was preparing a book containing testimonials by refugees from the German occupation.
This is a wonderful, extensive report which he made for the newspaper Ahora in April and May of 1934, in which Chaves Nogales accompanied a meager Spanish expeditionary force in its occupation of the Moroccan territory of Ifni, located on the southwestern coast just above the Western Sahara, as ordered by the government of the Spanish Republic. On certain occasions before this journey, Chaves Nogales had already stated, according to his publisher, David González Romero, in the publisher’s note on the report, that “Morocco is such a confusing place that anything is possible.” Along with members of the military, he was able to visit the entire region without danger. He held friendly interviews with local chiefs, filled with as much humor as respect. He would draw a brief profile of the hero of that era, Colonel Capaz, and the riches and poverty in this territory. However, despite his surprise and joy given the untraumatic and scarcely violent nature of the expedition, Chaves Nogales did not fail to notice the differences between a “true occupation” and a mere “symbolic possession of the place.” This last assessment was commented on by González Romero to praise the author’s visionary character, because “our observant author could not have known in 1934 that he was treading the future stage of the Spain’s last colonial war: the Sidi Ifni episode in 1957 and 1958.”
The publishing house Almuzara, after several publications by Sevillian writer Manuel Chaves Nogales, including “La ciudad” (“The City”), “Bajo el signo de la esvástica” (“Under the Sign of the Swastika”) and “Andalucía roja y la Blanca Paloma” (“Red Andalusia and the Dove”), is making its way back into bookstores with a new title: “Ifni, la última aventura colonial española” (“Ifni, Spain’s Last Colonial Adventure”). The book is a magnificent and ample report which Chaves Nogales provided for the newspaper Ahora in April and May 1934, in which he accompanied a meager Spanish expeditionary force in its occupation of the Moroccan territory of Ifni, located on the southwestern coast, just above the Western Sahara, as ordered by the government of the Spanish Republic.
At this event, Casa Árabe and the publishing house Almuzara will be paying homage to this essential figure in the history of Spanish journalism, Manuel Chaves Nogales, whose chronicles and books have contributed to forging our memory of the twentieth century.
Manuel Chaves Nogales (Seville, 1897-London, 1944)
Today he is one of the references in twentieth-century Spanish literature and journalism. In 1921, just as he was leaving the publication of his first book prepared, “La ciudad” (“The City”), dedicated to examining the complex soul of his home town, he left for Madrid, with a stopover in Cordoba, to start his career in the changing world of journalism. As the editor-in-chief of El Heraldo and director of Ahora, he became the greatest of role models in journalism in the era of the Spanish Republic, even becoming an interlocutor of President Azaña’s. In those years, he reached the highest achievements in journalism with his great reports on Morocco and his denunciation of Bolshevik Russia and fascist regimes. His literary works, which lie somewhere between journalism and the novel, include several fascinating works on Russian topics, and in 1935 he achieved a huge publishing success with the very well-known journalistic series on Juan Belmonte in La Estampa and La Nación, which would later be published as a book and grant him international fame. With the war, he had to leave Spain, and after a time in Paris, where he wrote a large part of his book “La agonía de Francia” (“France’s Agony,” 1941), he took up residence in London, where he would continue his work in international frontline journalism. In this climate of war and exile, and with his health waning, an unfortunate surgical intervention led to his death while he was preparing a book containing testimonials by refugees from the German occupation.
On Ifni, Spain’s Last Colonial Adventure
This is a wonderful, extensive report which he made for the newspaper Ahora in April and May of 1934, in which Chaves Nogales accompanied a meager Spanish expeditionary force in its occupation of the Moroccan territory of Ifni, located on the southwestern coast just above the Western Sahara, as ordered by the government of the Spanish Republic. On certain occasions before this journey, Chaves Nogales had already stated, according to his publisher, David González Romero, in the publisher’s note on the report, that “Morocco is such a confusing place that anything is possible.” Along with members of the military, he was able to visit the entire region without danger. He held friendly interviews with local chiefs, filled with as much humor as respect. He would draw a brief profile of the hero of that era, Colonel Capaz, and the riches and poverty in this territory. However, despite his surprise and joy given the untraumatic and scarcely violent nature of the expedition, Chaves Nogales did not fail to notice the differences between a “true occupation” and a mere “symbolic possession of the place.” This last assessment was commented on by González Romero to praise the author’s visionary character, because “our observant author could not have known in 1934 that he was treading the future stage of the Spain’s last colonial war: the Sidi Ifni episode in 1957 and 1958.”
