Novel
Mr. Witt Among the Rebels
Mister Witt en el cantón
Ramón J. Sender · 1935
Synopsis
Cartagena, July 1873: the city proclaims itself an autonomous canton, and the insurgents seize the arsenal and the fleet. Mister Witt, an English engineer who has worked for years at the shipyards, conservative and puritan, watches the events as a well-placed witness. He is married to Milagritos, a Spanish woman born in Lorca, spontaneous and passionate, and jealousy gnaws at him: he suspects her of once having loved a relative of hers, Froilán Carvajal, then sees her fall in love with Colau, captain of the frigate Tetuán. His private life and the city's revolt can no longer be separated.
Context
The author said he had written the novel in twenty-three days; submitted at once to the national competition of 1935, it won before a jury chaired by Antonio Machado and on which Pío Baroja sat. The book follows the method of Galdós's historical episodes and takes as its setting the canton of Cartagena, proclaimed on 12 July 1873 under the First Republic, which held out until 12 January 1874 and minted its own currency. Translated into English as early as 1937, it appeared in French only in 1979, under the title Mr. Witt chez les cantonards.
Who it is for
A historical novel in which a marital crisis is intertwined with a little-known episode of Spanish history, which it is better to know.
Prizes and reception
National Prize for Literature in 1935, which established its author's reputation; translated into English by Peter Chalmers Mitchell.
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