Misplaced Pages

#799200

20-553: The village was the home of the British writer Gerald Brenan in the 1920s, and he described its customs in South from Granada , one of his best-known books. Brenan stated in the book that he chose Yegen (at the time with no paved road connection or public transport) because of its favourable geography, including abundant water. In recent years the village has held events commemorating the writer's interest in local culture. A Brenan museum

40-873: A daughter, Miranda Helen, who later lived in France. In 1930, he met the American poet and novelist Gamel Woolsey (1895–1968) in Dorset ; they married in Rome in 1931. They lived in Churriana, a village near Málaga , during the early part of the Spanish Civil War , befriending the 72-year-old zoologist, Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell . Like Sir Peter, they provided safe haven to a right-wing sympathiser, despite objecting to his political views, staying on in Spain until

60-430: A passionate and painful love affair, but Woolsey and Alyse became friends for life. She left New York for England in 1928, settling in Dorset to be near Llewelyn, where she came to know the whole Powys family and their circle. She parted from Llewelyn in 1930. In 1933, she began an enduring friendship with the philosopher Bertrand Russell . Shortly thereafter, she met the writer Gerald Brenan . They moved to Churriana,

80-443: A village near Málaga, just before the Spanish Civil War broke out, staying in Spain until the city was occupied by Italian forces sent by Mussolini to support the fascist rebels. They befriended the 72-year-old zoologist Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell , and like Sir Peter, they provided safe haven to a right-wing sympathiser (in their case a member of the aristocratic Larios family) despite objecting to his political views. This interlude

100-567: A writer. Her first known published poem appeared in the New York Evening Post in 1922. The following year, she met and married Rex Hunter , a writer and journalist from New Zealand. They separated after four years. In 1927, while living in Patchin Place , Greenwich Village, she met the British writer John Cowper Powys , and through him, his brother Llewelyn and Llewelyn's wife Alyse Gregory . Llewelyn and Woolsey had

120-651: Is being developed in the village. Most of its inhabitants are descendants of people from the northern regions of Spain (mostly from Galicia ) that were brought to the village after the Expulsion of the Moriscos in the 17th century. At the end of the 19th century and all across the 20th century, Yegen, like most of the country, was a land of emigrants that left for better opportunities in Europe ( Andorra , Germany , Switzerland ) and America . This situation reversed in

140-703: Is buried at the English Cemetery, Málaga . Brenan spent most of the remainder of his life in Churriana near Malaga and after Woolsey's death, in Alhaurín el Grande , Málaga. In 1984 Brenan was moved to a nursing home in Pinner , Middlesex . There was some controversy as to whether he wanted to live in England, and he returned to Spain after the authorities there made special arrangements to provide him with

160-735: Is documented in Sir Peter's memoir My House in Málaga , and in Woolsey's memoir Death’s Other Kingdom . The couple returned to England, and for many years afterward, they lived in Aldbourne in Wiltshire. They returned to Spain in 1953. Neither of Woolsey's novels were published in her lifetime. In 1931 Middle Earth , a collection of 36 poems was published, and in 1939, she published Death's Other Kingdom , an account of her experiences during

180-523: Is probably best known for The Spanish Labyrinth , a historical work on the background to the Spanish Civil War , and for a mainly autobiographical work South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village . He was appointed CBE in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List of 1982. Brenan was born in Malta into a well-off Anglo-Irish family, while his father was serving there in

200-544: The British Army . He was educated at Radley , a boarding school in England, which he hated due to the bullying he endured. His autobiographic works make it clear that he did not enjoy a good relationship with his father, Major Hugh Brenan. At the age of 18, and to spite his father who wanted him to train for an army career at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst , he set off with an older friend,

220-661: The New England Dwight family had influence in the law, the church and education. Gamel's aunt, Sarah Chauncey Woolsey – better known by her pen name, Susan Coolidge – wrote the popular Katy series and other children's fiction. Gamel's half-brother John M. Woolsey was the judge who ruled that James Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene. After the death of her father the family moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where Gamel went to day school. Despite weak health following an attack of tuberculosis in 1915, Woolsey moved to New York City in 1921, hoping to be an actress or

SECTION 10

#1732772471800

240-654: The British Army and served in France throughout the war. After being demobbed in 1919, Hope-Johnstone introduced Brenan to the Bloomsbury Group . In 1919 he moved to Spain, and from 1920 on he rented a house in the small village of Yegen , in the Alpujarras district of the province of Granada . He spent his time catching up on the education which he felt he had missed by not attending university, and in writing. An important factor in his moving to Spain

260-490: The city was occupied by Italian forces sent by Mussolini to support the fascist rebels. This interlude is documented in Sir Peter's memoir, My House in Málaga , and also in Woolsey's memoir, Death's Other Kingdom . The couple then returned to England and for many years afterwards they lived in Aldbourne in Wiltshire. Brenan was permitted to return to Spain in 1949 despite holding views which were critical of Franco 's regime. Gamel Woolsey died in Spain in 1968 of cancer, and

280-645: The first few months of the Spanish Civil War. She translated two books from Spanish to English: Spanish Fairy Stories (1944), and The Spendthrifts (1951), a translation of La de Bringas by Galdos which sold 70,000 copies. Her science fiction short story "The Star of Double Darkness" was published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1955. It can be read on page 145 of the Powys journal (volume viii). She died in Spain in 1968 of cancer

300-509: The late 1980s and now there is a small community with a few British and other European citizens that have bought houses in Yegen as a first or second residence. 36°59′N 3°07′W  /  36.983°N 3.117°W  / 36.983; -3.117 Gerald Brenan Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan , CBE , MC (7 April 1894 – 19 January 1987) was a British writer and hispanist who spent much of his life in Spain. Brenan

320-607: The nursing care on which he depended in his old age. At the time of his death, his body was donated to the Medicine Faculty of Málaga for medical research and later cremated; his ashes are buried in the English Cemetery, Malaga . A Life of One's Own and A Personal Record together make up his autobiography. He left uncompleted a work on Spanish poetry which was published posthumously as La Copla Popular Española . Gamel Woolsey Gamel Woolsey (born Elizabeth Gammell Woolsey ; May 28, 1897 – January 18, 1968)

340-692: The occasional photographer and eccentric, John Hope-Johnstone , to walk to China. Between August 1912 and January 1913 they walked 1,560 miles, reaching Bosnia before lack of money made them turn back. Brenan spent the next ten months in Germany, learning the language, surprisingly in preparation for joining the Indian Police Service, but this plan was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914. He immediately joined

360-570: Was an American poet, novelist and translator. Woolsey was born on the Breeze Hill plantation in Aiken , South Carolina as Elizabeth Gammell Woolsey. In later years, she took her middle name which she shortened to Gamel, a Norse word meaning "old". Her father was planter William Walton Woolsey (1842–1909). Woolsey was a descendant of George (Joris) Woolsey, one of the early settlers of New Amsterdam , and Thomas Cornell . The Woolsey branch of

380-530: Was his calculation that his small income would go further there. Despite the remoteness of his new home, contacts with the Bloomsbury Group continued, particularly with his best friend Ralph Partridge and Partridge's first wife Dora Carrington , with whom Brenan had an affair. In the late 1920s he formed a relationship with his maid, Juliana Martin Pelegrina, which in 1931 resulted in the birth of

400-493: Was is buried in the English Cemetery, Malaga . One Way of Love , accepted by Gollancz in 1931, but suppressed because it was considered too sexually explicit, was published by Virago Press in 1987. Death's Other Kingdom was re-released as Malaga Burning in 1998 by Pythia Press, and is now available on e-readers and in paperback under its original title. Patterns on the Sand , which recalls Woolsey's South Carolina childhood,

#799200