El maestro Juan Martínez que estaba allí. (The Professor Juan Martínez That Was Over There)

Reviewed by Leda Schiavo, Buenos Aires, Argentina -- Críticas, 3/1/2008

Nogales-Chaves, Manuel.
Spain: Libros del Asteroide. 2007. 287p. ISBN 978-84-945018-6-0. pap. $50.95. FICTION

Chaves Nogales (1897–1944) has a singular story. A successful journalist/novelist from Seville, Spain, whose career ended abruptly with the Spanish Civil War, he died prematurely in exile. His work, which was almost forgotten, is now being rediscovered. Chaves Nogales wrote mainly about the Spanish Civil War and the Russian Revolution, insistently denouncing the cruelty and irrationality of war. His narrator and protagonist here is Juan Martínez, a flamenco dancer caught between the White Army and the Reds in revolutionary Russia. The two have most of their adventures in Kiev, though the narrator also witnesses the excesses of the revolution in Moscow. Juan Martínez endures terrible things, but he becomes neither a murderer, despite the brutalities he sees everywhere nor an informer, despite his forced relationship with Bolshevik agents. He survives. When the Whites are winning, he wears tails and dances; when the Reds are winning, he dresses up like a poor man and works as a croupier at casinos. Living in constant deprivation and danger, he witnesses the persecution of Jews, the massacres by both armies as they capture and recapture Kiev, the criminal deeds of the Soviet Secret Police (Cheka), and the brutality of the Cossacks. Originally published in 1934, this book seems like a premonition of the Spanish Civil War (which started in 1936). A vivid recollection of real events by a narrator who is always an outsider, this book is recommended to readers interested in historical fiction.

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