A Moment of War by Laurie Lee
In December 1937 a naive young Englishman slipped across the Spanish frontier to fight for the Republican cause. In the third volume of his autobiographical trilogy, which began with "Cider With Rosie", Laurie Lee describes a winter fighting with the International Brigade. This is a view of the Spanish Civil War from below, a tragi-comic account of rivalry and ribaldry in the ranks. Lee's fellow volunteers were an ill-starred posse of Scots, Cockneys, Welsh miners and Frenchmen who drank, gambled and pursued women when not engaging the enemy. Lee himself fell for the ravishing Eulalia, a passionate young partisan who reappeared in his life with an almost miraculous sense of timing to ease his misfortunes. He was arrested and three times narrowly escaped execution in a war which claimed half a million lives. Reflecting on what had compelled him to fight, Lee reasoned that he had wanted "the chance to make one grand gesture of personal sacrifice and faith".
Laurie Lee was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in 1914, and was educated at Slad village school and Stroud Central School. In his teens Lee had already began to write poems. He had met two sisters who encouraged him in his writing aspirations. At the age of nineteen he walked to London and then travelled on foot through Spain, where he was trapped by the outbreak of the Civil War. He later returned by crossing the Pyrenees, as described in his book As I Walked Out one Midsummer Morning. During World War II he made documentary films for the General Post Office film unit (1939-40), and the Crown Film Unit (1941-43). From 1944 to 1946 he worked as an editor at the Ministry of Information Publications. In 1950 he married Catherine Polge and they had one daughter.
He died in May 1997.
He died in May 1997.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780670840199 |
| ISBN 10 | 067084019X |
| Title | A Moment of War |
| Author | Laurie Lee |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1991-10-14 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |