Arturo Barea (1897-1957) is often seen as merely a spontaneous writer with a passion against injustice. In fact, he set out deliberately to write concretely and sensuously: about himself in order to understand his mid-life nervous breakdown; and about his generation as a way of explaining the underlying causes of the Spanish Civil War. With acute psychological insight, this self-taught boy from the slums, who left school aged 13, drew a unique portrait of Spanish society in the early twentieth century. His trilogy The Forging of a Rebelwas well-received by George Orwell, An excellent book -- Senor Barea is one of the most valuable of the literary acquisitions that England has made as a result of Fascist persecution; and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One of the best novels written in Spanish.He is unusual in that he was one of the first Spanish working-class writers, one of the first autobiographers in Spain, and someone who published mainly in English though all his attention was focused on Spain. In this