Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

(1867–1928), Spain. Writer

Outspoken against the monarchy, Blasco Ibáñez published a radical republican journal, El pueblo, and was imprisoned 30 times for political activism. His novels are primarily realistic in conception. The early ones, set in Valencia, include Flor de mayo (1895, tr. The Mayflower, 1921), La barraca [The Cabin] (1898), Cañas y barro (1902, tr. Reeds and Mud, 1928), and La catedral (1903, tr. The Shadow of the Cathedral, 1909). He traveled in South America, returning to Spain at the outbreak of World War I. He became a propagandist for the Allies, and his war novel, Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (1916, tr. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1918), made him world famous. He died a voluntary political exile.