Christie Books

LOS AÑOS DEL PISTOLERISMO. Ensayo para una guerra civil — León-Ignacio. (Jacinto León Ignacio Ruiz de Cardenas —1919-1991)

Posted on March 21, 2018 at 11:50 pm. Written by Christie

Durante cinco años. de 1919 a 1923, las luchas obreras adquirieron un tono de extraordinaria violencia. Gentes de distinta ideología y diferente clase social se mataban por las calles a plena luz del día. Fue el equivalente a las revueltas espartaquistas de Alemania y a las marxistas de Hungría y otros varios países. El recuerdo de aquellos años trágicos se mantiene aún y resultan familiares los nombres de Martínez Anido, de Arlegui y del Noi del Sucre. Sin embargo, poca gente sabe cómo se llegó a eso y de qué forma, y en qué circunstancias se desarrolló la lucha.

El presente libro es un intento de exponerlo de forma cronológica y de aclarar quiénes lo hicieron y por qué lo hicieron. Se ha pretendido sobre todo exponer el gran drama humano que representó la resistencia sindicalista y la represión burguesa que ocurrieron paralelamente y que fueron consecuencia una de otra en un continuo círculo vicioso. Asimismo. el libro intenta exponer las consecuencias que durante años tuvo esa lucha, impulsada por extremistas de ambos bandos. hasta que la convivencia llegó a ser imposible. Fue un ensayo de guerra civil.

Jacinto León Ignacio Ruiz de Cardenas (1919-1991)

León-Ignacio nació en Barcelona el 21 de agosto de 1919. Estudió en el colegio del Redentor y en la English School, ambos de Barcelona, con breves intermedios en el Lycée de Foix, Francia, y en el Institut Tecnic Eulália de Barcelona.

Ha sido redactor de la revista Fotogramas y ha colaborado en El Correo Catalán, Algo, Horizonte y TeleleXprés de Barcelona.

Es autor de varias novelas: A ras de tierra, Corpus de Sangre en Barcelona, que él llama reportaje histórico, y Los quinquis, un estudio sobre este desconocido grupo social que nada tiene que ver con el uso que se hace de la palabra.

En el presente libro aborda un tema que le intereso casi desde niño. En su primera infancia seguía vivo el recuerdo de las violentas luchas sociales de Barcelona. Para un niño significaba casi una novela del Oeste. Más adelante, por curiosidad, fue hablando con cuantos habían vivido o conocido aquella epoca y aquella lucha. Cierto día en casa de Dionisio Ridruejo se dijo, precisamente al comentar aquellos años, que hacia falta un estudio de ese período tan oscuro y tan trágico. Entonces concibió la idea del presente libro, cuya preparación y redacción han sido muy difíciles.

Photo archives: 1918 a ; 1918 b ; 1918 c ; 1919 a ; 1919 b ; 1920s a ; 1920s b ; 1920s c

FAMILY by Pa Chin. Introduction by Olga Lang

Posted on March 8, 2018 at 5:53 pm. Written by Christie

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All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto

Modernity brought in its wake a series of civilization changing events. Social tradition, family life, government, nothing was safe from its long lumbering march over the corpses of outdated societies. Like some Darwinian experiment, whole civilizations were forced to upheave their past and redefine themselves, or face crushing colonization from countries that had already undertaken the great change. Modernity brought technology, and technology brought power. To exist in the modern world, to survive, a country needed both.

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Footnotes to History: “Operation Durruti”, First of May Group

Posted on February 27, 2018 at 6:32 pm. Written by Christie

On 24 October 1966 five members of the anarchist ‘First of May Group’¹ were arrested in Madrid by the Francoist Brigada Político-Social and charged with preparing acts of terrorism. The action in question, ‘Operation Durruti’, involved the kidnapping of US Rear Admiral Norman Campbell Gillette, Jr., commander of US forces in Spain, but the plan was compromised and betrayed from the beginning by a sixth member of the group, police informer Inocencio Martínez, who was allowed to escape and return to France where he continued his treachery for some years.

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The Inner Ring by C. S. Lewis

Posted on February 22, 2018 at 3:03 pm. Written by Christie

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) was Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, novelist, philosopher and a lay Anglican theologian. “The Inner Ring” was the Memorial Lecture he gave at King’s College, University of London, in 1944; it was Lewis’s warning to his ambitious Oxbridge students about politics, power, and the temptations and pitfalls that haunt higher office and the allure of favour seekers:

“May I read you a few lines from Tolstoy’s War and Peace?

When Boris entered the room, Prince Andrey was listening to an old general, wearing his decorations, who was reporting something to Prince Andrey, with an expression of soldierly servility on his purple face. “Alright. Please wait!” he said to the general, speaking in Russian with the French accent which he used when he spoke with contempt. The moment he noticed Boris he stopped listening to the general who trotted imploringly after him and begged to be heard, while Prince Andrey turned to Boris with a cheerful smile and a nod of the head. Boris now clearly understood—what he had already guessed—that side by side with the system of discipline and subordination which were laid down in the Army Regulations, there existed a different and more real system—the system which compelled a tightly laced general with a purple face to wait respectfully for his turn while a mere captain like Prince Andrey chatted with a mere second lieutenant like Boris. Boris decided at once that he would be guided not by the official system but by this other unwritten system.

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COLD NIGHTS A novel by Pa Chin. Translated by Nathan K. Mai and Liu Ts’un-yan

Posted on February 19, 2018 at 7:19 pm. Written by Christie

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ON THE eve of Pa Chin’s birth, the goddess of childbearing appeared to his mother in a dream. The goddess informed her that she had been chosen to give birth to a child that had been intended for her sister-in-law, because the gods were afraid that the sister-in-law might not take good care of the infant.¹ On the next day, November 25,1904, Pa Chin, whose real name is Li Fei-kan, was born into a traditional upper-class family in Chengtu, Szechwan Province, in western China. Pa Chin’s grandfather and great-grandfather had both been magistrates, and a few years after his birth, his father assumed a magistrate’s position. The huge family, including Pa Chin’s parents, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, and nephews as well as a large number of servants, lived in a traditional family compound under the rule of his grandfather. Of the first few years of Pa Chin’s life little is known.

In the second half of 1907, Pa Chin’s immediate family moved to Kuang-yüan in northern Szechwan, where his father served as the local magistrate. Together with his parents, two elder sisters, and two elder brothers he lived in the yamen, an official walled compound. Life was pleasant for Pa Chin. Every day a mild-mannered tutor taught the basic classics to him and the other children in a special room. While classes were being held, an elderly gray-haired servant waited on the pupils. After class every afternoon, Pa Chin played in the courtyards with his elder brother and a 13-year-old bondservant. The courtyards were overgrown with tall grass and mulberry trees and filled with chickens. The children picked mulberries, gave names to the chickens, and played games.

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