Anarchy’s Brief Summer

A unique portrait of a revolutionary movement that is largely unknown outside Spain. Northern Spain is the only part of Western Europe where anarchism played a significant role in the political life of the twentieth century. Enjoying wide-ranging support among both the urban and rural working class, its importance peaked during its “brief summer”—the civil war between the Republic and General Franco’s Falangists, during which anarchists even participated in the government of Catalonia.
 
Anarchy’s Brief Summer brings anarchism to life by focusing on the charismatic leader Buenaventura Durruti (1896–1936), who became a key figure in the Spanish Civil War after a militant and adventurous youth. The basis of the book is a compilation of texts: personal testimony, interviews with survivors, contemporary documents, memoirs, and academic assessments. They are all linked by Enzenberger’s own assessment in a series of glosses—a literary form that is somewhere between retelling and reconstruction—with the contradiction between fiction and fact reflecting the political contradictions of the Spanish Revolution. 

Hans Magnus Enzensberger, often considered Germany’s most important living poet, is also the editor of the book series Die Andere Bibliothek and the founder of the monthly TransAtlantik. His books include Lighter Than Air: Moral Poems and Civil Wars: From L.A. to Bosnia. Mike Mitchell is a translator from French and German.
 

The Funeral Ceremony
First Gloss: On History as Collective Fiction
Stray Bullets
Second Gloss: On the Roots of Spanish Anarchism
Los Solidarios
Third Gloss: On the Spanish Dilemma, 1917–1931
Exile
Fourth Gloss: On the Spanish Dilemma, 1931–36
The Republic
The Victory
Power-Sharing
The Campaign
Behind the Lines
The Peasants
Fifth Gloss: About the Enemy
The Militias
Sixth Gloss: On the Decline and Fall of the Anarchists
The Defence of Madrid
Seventh Gloss: About the Hero
His Death
Eighth Gloss: The Revolution Grows Older
Posterity
Sources

"Enzensberger’s collection of personal testimonies creates a vivid portrait of Durruti as a revolutionary."

"Anarchy's Brief Summer is one of greatest novels I've ever read."