Must Read Autobiographies - I

While compiling this series, I noticed that I have already mentioned some of the best autobiographies and biographies in my series labeled "Top Non Fictions". Hence this series will exclude those titles. The books are listed at random and does not represent any ranking.

Homage to Catalonia

George Orwell

George Orwell was sent to Spain in 1936 to report on the civil war raging there. Instead Orwell joined the civil war and fought the fascists. Homage to Catalonia is his personal account of his experiences and observations in the war. The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952,

Orwell served as a private, a corporal and then as a lieutenant in the militia of the leftist anti-Stanilist and Trotskyist political party in Catalonia and Aragon between 1936 and 1937. He had to flee the country when the political party declared illegal.

Orwell served on the Aragon front for a hundred and fifteen days. It was not until the end of April 1937 that he was granted leave and was able to see his wife Eileen in Barcelona again.  At this point he was convinced that he would have the chance to see more action if he joined the International Brigade and fought with it on the Madrid front; his attitude was still one of exasperation in the face of the rivalries between the various factions. He found himself and his comrades under fire from their left-wing 'allies'" in the fighting that followed the government effort to take control of the Telephone Exchange.  The Spanish Government was seeking to assert direct control on Barcelona, which was chiefly in the hands of the Anarchists. Orwell was caught up in the fight.

On 17 May 1937,  Juan Negrin became prime minister. The NKVD-controlled secret police pursued its persecution of persons who opposed the Moscow line. On 16 June, when the Trotskyte party, the persecution of the party workers began. 

At the front, Orwell was shot through the throat by a sniper on 20 May 1937 and nearly killed. After having his wounds dressed at a first aid post about half a mile from the front line, he was transferred to Lerida where he received only an external treatment of his wound. Shortly thereafter he was move to Barcelona. On 23 June 1937 Orwell and Eileen, with two others, boarded the morning train from Barcelona to Paris and crossed into France. 

Orwell and Eileen returned to England where he scripted Homage to Catalonia. Because of the book's criticism of the Communists in Spain, it was rejected by the publisher, who had communist affiliations and who had previously published all Orwell's books.

The book was finally published in April 1938 in United Kingdom.

Namaste

Prabir