English and American writers in the Spanish capital city

Madrid is a great city for literary enthusiasts, the perfect place to start a literary tour is in the Literary Quarter (Barrio de las Letras through calle Huertas, Casa de Cervantes, cuesta Moyano...).The quarter attracted a lot of writers since the 16th century, and today there is a bohemian atmosphere lined up with trendybars, live music clubs and eateries to hang out at any time.

Famous bars and restaurants where some English speaking authors hung out in the last century, and also some appear in different literary works are the following:

-Las Cuevas del Sésamo (calle del Principe, 7) is an underground cavern, a popular hangout for the literary, bohemian and artistic communities in Madrid  and one of the favourites of American writer Ernest Heminghway, there is an autographed plaque that  hangs there in his honor. The walls also feature painted quotes by other literary figures such as Lorca and Cervantes.

-Restaurante Sobrino de Botín Horno de Asar (calle Cuchilleros, 17) founded in 1725 and named the Guinness Book of World Records as the world´s oldest operating restaurant, Hemingway wrote about it in The Sun Also Rises.

-Bar Chicote, famous and pioneer cocktail bar located in Gran Vía, 12 it was inaugurated in 1931 by the Ritz barman Pedro Chicote and its museum was opened in 1940, when he decided show to the public his nearly 20 thousand bottles of alcoholic beverages in the cellar. Famous visitors were Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck, Bette Davis, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Sofía Loren, Alexander Fleming, etc. It was also the centre of the “movida” in the 80s when the city major Enrique Tierno Galván opened another in Recoletos, 41 but closed soon, when Pedro Chicote died in 1983, it was closed and bought by Rumasa from the entrepreneur Ruiz Mateos and when it was expropriated it was closed for many decades. Then it was opened again by the Grupo Mercado de la Reina where every Wednesday in the evening there are Literary gatherings where famous contemporary authors visit it.

-Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), famous American novelist, short story and writer, he was fascinated with Madrid and he would return many times after reporting on the Spanish Civil War, his favourite haunts were the old sherry bar “La Venencia”, the bar of the Palace Hotel…he used to say “Madrid rebosa literatura, poesia y musica por sus cuatro costados, tanto que ella misma es un personaje”.

-Orson Welles (Wisconsin 1915-California 1985), the famous American film maker of “Citizen Kane” was not only famous in Spain for being the husband of Rita Hayworth (actually named Margarita Cansino because his father was a Sevillian from Castilleja de la Cuesta), who lived in the Hotel Castellana Hilton (today Intercontinental) in 1954 where Orson lived with his lover Paola Mori, countess of Girifalco. He used to go to the bullfighting in Las Ventas and visit the flamenco tablaos such as Villa Rosa and Corral de la Morería, the cocktail bar of Perico Chicote, also his blasts with Ava Gardner in the hotel Ritz in Madrid were renowned. He was a close friend of many bullfighters and his ashes rest in Ronda in the farm manor of Ordoñez family.

-John Dos Passos (1896-1970), he was an American author of “USA” and “Manhanttan Transfer”, he was of Portuguese origin and he visited Madrid many times during the 20s and 30s. He published his first book about Madrid in 1915 named “Rosinante to the Road Again” and later “Journeys Between Wars” and “In All Countries”, he became very disappointed with politics after the disappearance and murder of his friend and translator José Robles. He wrote about Madrid:

“my chief joy is the Sierra de Guadarrama; the long range of brown mountains to the North and West: behind them the sun sets with numbing glory. I´ve never seen such sunsets; they stir up your soul the way a cook stirs a pot of broth but wish what a golden spoon”.

During the Civil War many foreigners came to Madrid to take part in any of the bands, and there is a list of famous English-speaking authors who lived in the capital city of Spain:

-Stephen Spender (1909-1995 London), he was an English poet, novelist and essayist who wrote about working class struggles and social injustice. He came in 1937 sent by the newspaper “ The Daily Worker” to observe and report on the Soviet ship Komsomol, which had sunk while carrying Soviet weapons to the Second Spanish Republic, he met here Ernest Hemingway, André Malraux and Manuel Altolaguirre.

-Wystan Hugh Auden, (York 1907-1973 Vienna) he was an English poet, author and playwright, he wrote about the 30s in “The Age of Anxiety” and he came to Madrid in 1937 to drive an ambulance and support the Republican band where he also made translations to the Socialist party. Here he wrote the famous poem “Spain” and he used to say that “Madrid is the heart”.

-Langston Hughes, (1902-1967) the Afro-American poet came to Madrid too during the Spanish Civil War where he wrote “Postcard from Spain” (1938) written in the form of a letter written to Alabama from the Lincoln-Washington Battalion. Because Spain proved for him an arena in which black and white people interacted as equals and he sees it as a turning point, a war in which to bridge racial and class divides present in his native country and Alabama.

-Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) He was an American author very concerned with class struggles and he wrote and published “No pasarán: a story of the Battle of Madrid” in 1937.

-Roy Campbell (South Africa 1901-Setúbal 1957) he was a poet, translator and hispanist  and he was regarded as one of the best poets in the Interwar period in Europe. He  used to say that Spain saved his soul, he wrote “Flowering Rifle: A Poem from the Battlefield of Spain“(1936). He converted to Catholicism in Spain by a priest that would be martyrized later, and in March, in 1936, in Toledo while a Communist uprising was attacking religious and Catholic churches the friars trusted in him to save the manuscript of Saint John of the Cross, later their monastery was plundered and the 17 friars were murdered. He saved and translated into English the valuable manuscript of the Spanish poet.

-Priscilla Scott-Ellis (1916-1983) she was an English aristocrat who married the Spanish aristocrat, actor and writer José Luis de Vilallonga and she served in the National band as a nurse and wrote “Diary of the War of Spain” a very praised book “a diary which says more about the conflict than many intellectual books” as written by the historian and Hispanist Hugh Thomas.  

  

                Since the end of the eighteenth century Spain became an exotic country to European travellers and writers, so we have many travellers books which depict Spain as exotic as Morocco but nearer, safer and quieter, they were known as “The Curiosos Impertinentes”. There are famous books dealing with the Spanish capital city somehow such as the following: --“Guidebook to travellers in Spain”, by Richard Ford, 1831.

-“Diaries of travelling through Spain”, 1849 by George Ticknor who was a pioneer in Hispanic studies at the University of Oxford.

-“The Bible of Spain”1836-40 by George Borrow.

Famous authors also wrote about other parts of Spain such as Andalusia; the American writer Washington Irving and the British Hispanist and poet from the Bloomsbury group Gerald Brenan or the famous Danish story teller Hans Christian Andersen. Nowadays there are many English speaking authors either living in Madrid (William Chislett) or writing about Madrid (Norman Lewis and Gary Bedell “Los viajes del guiri”).