Editor: Alice Leccese Powers
Publishers: Vintage Books
ISBN: 978-1-4000-7676-5


Deftly portraying the entirety of a country with mere words is not a task lightly undertaken, especially when the country in question is as ebullient and historically intriguing as Spain. Luckily for us, Alice
Leccese Powers, the editor of Spain in Mind, has realized this and enlisted a brigade of literary figures - both modern and historic - to help her accomplish the task.

From the first story of Spain in Mind - John Affleck's modern treatise on Hemingway - to its last - Richard Wright's somewhat mouth-agape report on gypsy culture - the reader is led on a centuries-spanning tour of Spain, from Lord Byron's revealing 1809 letter to his mother, to Tim
Moore's poignant 2004 excerpt of "Travels with My Donkey".

The respective pieces of Spain in Mind have already been presented - in some cases for centuries - to the public in various forms and to wide critical and commercial success. Included are such well-known writers as W.H. Auden, E.E. Cummings, Robert Graves, Ernest Hemingway, Washington
Irving, James Michener, George Orwell and William Wordsworth.

More contemporary writers such as Robert Hughes, who provides an insightful excerpt from Barcelona the Great Enchantress, and Billy Collins, who contributes an irreverent poem on Goya and his famous candle-studded painting hat, are also included in Spain in Mind, which
helps round out some of the more historic contributions. Further, the lush imagery wrought by these writers is well-complimented by Powers' inclusion of page-long contributor biographies, which help place the respective pieces into their proper historical and categorical context.

A collection of fiction, nonfiction and poetry from 40 noteworthy writers, Spain in Mind contains 40 very different Spains, each of which represent a portion of its overall picture. Together, these essays
enable Spain in Mind to artfully capture the beautiful, sometimes irascible and always vivacious nature of Spain herself in a way that a guidebook could never hope to do. For the literary-minded fan of the Iberian Peninsula, Spain in Mind is a must-read - and will be for many
years to come.

The above review was contributed by: Jim Curtiss: Jim is a cultural sojourner who makes his living as a freelance editor, writer, actor and teacher. Much of his work deals with the challenges and glories of the expatriate lifestyle. Jim and his wife Jarmila currently live in Seville, Spain.

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