The Anarchist Who Shared My Name |
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BOOK
REVIEW by Willard Manus The Spanish writer Pablo Martin Sanchez has written a memorable historical novel, one which deals with the painful yet heroic story of a band of rebels who tried in 1924 to overthrow the brutal regime of the fascist dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera. THE ANARCHIST
WHO SHARED MY NAME mixes fiction and non-fiction for some 587 pages, yet
never seems to flag or stumble. On the contrary, the novel is so skillfully
written and constructed that it kept me turning its pages with eager fascination. |
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The novel (skillfully translated by Jeff Diteman) opens in an unusual way. The author, young and unpublished at the time, Googles his own name and finds it in an international dictionary of anarchist militants who had been captured, condemned to death and executed for having taken part in the uprising against de Rivera. Intrigued, he works long and ceaselessly to track down more information about his tragic namesake. Ultimately, he decides to write a book about Sanchez, commencing with his subjects years in Paris when he was scratching out a living as a typesetter for a left-wing newspaper read by expatriate Spaniards. We also meet Sanchezs best friend, Roberto Olaya, known to all as Robinson, whom he has not seen since the end of the Great War, back in 1918, when they went their separate ways at the Gare dAusterlitz with lumps in their throats. Robinson has a loyal wiener dog named Kropotkin and is a raffish character, a red-headed and -bearded anarchist who sports a bowler hat and dabbles in vegetarianism and nudism. |
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![]() Pablo Martin Sanchez |
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The authors
skill at portraiture is matched by his equally impressive way with research.
He weaves bits and pieces of history into the narrative (the sinking of
the Titanic, the Battle of Verdun) and much newspaper commentary as well
(from both the Left and Right). But mostly he focuses on the tragic fate
of his namesake, the ex-typesetter known as Pablo Martin Sanchez whose
life was cut short by his decision to join a worthy but doomed battle
for liberty and democracy. |