Manuel Chaves Nogales's 'A feu et à sang' Chronicles Spanish Civil War

Manuel Chaves Nogales's 'A feu et à sang', published in 1937 shortly after his refuge in France, offers nine short stories based on his firsthand experiences of the Spanish Civil War. The collection stands out for its vivid, immediate prose and refusal to take sides, depicting communists, fascists, republicans, and international forces with equal critical distance. Notable for its opening line describing an aerial bomb as a 'small soap bubble', the book captures the brutality and chaos of war without partisan bias. The review by Olivier Renault in artpress highlights the author's lucidity and lack of prejudice, noting appearances by figures like André Malraux. The work is presented as a unique contribution to the vast literature on the Spanish Civil War, written from the heart of the conflict rather than retrospectively.