Bernard-Henry Lévy pays tribute to Jorge Semprún, the Spanish novelist and public intellectual who died earlier this month:

He had the eyes of a warrior, but his gaze became veiled and a bit haunted when he spoke of "his" dead -- glorious elders of the Spanish Civil War, companions of the maquis...
Read more »

For me, as for so many others throughout the world, the volunteers of the Lincoln Brigade are an example of courage and solidarity… They were the kind of people who fight against the worst cancer of humanity: indifference.  It is our duty to carry this idea of solidarity forward. —Judge Baltasar Garzón, on receiving...
Read more »

The First Annual ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism attracted widespread interest among the media in Europe and the Americas. Among the highlights: David Cole in The Nation; Dan Kaufman in The New Yorker; Amy Goodman for Democracy Now!. All the major Spanish papers featured the event prominently as well, as...
Read more »

Our friend Manus O'Riordan writes: On June 6, 2011, Athol Books of Belfast, Northern Ireland, published a new web booklet on its site entitled The Vindication of Brigadista and Union Man Jack James Larkin Jones: in refutation of the British intelligence campaign of character assassination. This booklet brings together a series of five articles written...
Read more »

In the first piece of positive judicial news for Judge Baltasar Garzón in a long time, the Supreme Court has announced the recusal of five of the seven Supreme Court justices initially assigned to the tribunal in charge of judging Garzón for alleged abuse of power when opening an investigation into crimes committed by...
Read more »

The death earlier this week of the Spanish-French novelist Jorge Semprún Maura at age 87 has spurred dozens of reflections on the importance of his life and work--both intimately tied up with the major events and movements of the twentieth century. Semprún, who wrote most of his books in French, was the son of...
Read more »

PBS's History Detectives airing on June 28, 2011, includes a moving episode on the friendship between Lincoln Brigaders Sol Fellman and Doug Roach, featuring interviews with Matti Mattson and ALBA's Jim Fernández. View the whole 18-minute segment  here. Be sure to check the listings of your local PBS station for more details. Read more »

A Moment in the Sun, the monumental new historical novel by ALBA board member John Sayles, is praised by Tom LeClair in this weekend's Times book review:

“A Moment in the Sun” is, it should be said, nearly 1,000 pages long. Sayles responds to readers’ presumed resentment against its bulk (a resentment...
Read more »

The uproar continues around Diccionario Biográfico Español, whose first 25 volumes were released last week by the Royal Academy of History, as the Spanish Parliament is demanding a thorough revision. The Financial Times covers the controversy; and I joined in on a collective op-ed that appeared yesterday in Público:

Read more »

The New Yorker's Dan Kaufman had lunch with Baltasar Garzón when he was in New York in May to receive the first ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism:

“My family on my father’s side was more progressive, while on my mother’s side they were more conservative,” Garzón said. His mother’s brother, Gabriel,...
Read more »