The starched blue sky of Spain, and other memoirs Book

In the 1930s, journalist and novelist Josephine Herbst (1892-1969) was widely regarded as one of the most important women writers in America. Yet the conservative climate of World War II and the ensuing Cold War relegated Herbst - like other radical writers of the interwar period - to almost total obscurity. By the 1960s, when Herbst composed the autobiographical essays in this collection, the insight of radical writers was being re-evaluated and appreciated once again. Herbst's reminiscences provide brilliant and evocative portraits of intellectual, artistic, and political life in the early twentieth century. Here we are witness to Herbst's childhood and young womanhood in the Midwest, her bohemian life in the East, and her extensive travels as a journalist. Along the way, she offers sketches of many of her contemporaries, including Allen Tate, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, and John Dos Passos.Read More