One of the top headlines on El País’s website earlier this week read: “The Spanish black legend spread by Hollywood”. The article beneath reported how the Defence Ministry has given an award to historian Esteban Vicente Boisseau for a book he has published on how Spain’s presence in the Americas between the 16th and 19th […]
Author Archives: hedgecoe
Mainland dreams
The desperation of migrants attempting to reach their dreamed-of destination has become a familiar sight on our TV and computer screens, its impact inevitably diluted by the 24-hours cycle. But on a recent trip to Spain’s North African city of Ceuta, I was reminded of the lengths to which many migrants will go in order […]
The Editor
In the spring of 2015, El Mundo’s Asia correspondent David Jiménez was unveiled as the newspaper’s new editor. A year and 366 editions of the paper later, he was sacked. Jiménez recounts his eventful tenure in a newly published book, El Director (“The Editor”). Having gone on sale this week it has already sparked a […]
Curtain call
“We have to accept that theatre is entertainment. But you can’t take the word ‘enjoyment’ to mean the avoiding of reality. Theatre should be a widening of reality.” – Alfonso Sastre. A deep divide runs down the middle of Spanish theatre. On the one hand, there are the big commercial productions, many of which can […]
Adults in the room
It’s still early days in the Supreme Court trial of 12 Catalan leaders for their role in the 2017 failed independence bid. But, with all the defendants having given an initial testimony and several of the highest profile witnesses having taken the stand, certain themes are emerging. One of them, of course, is the now […]
Arrimadas’s Waterloo “happening” kicks off Spanish electoral season
Spanish general election campaigns aren’t supposed to begin like this. They tend to kick off in echoey sports centres in Zaragoza, or lifeless conference halls in Marbella, with amp-busting canned music and kitsch flag-waving. But you could make the case that the 2019 election campaign began in Belgium, outside the rented Waterloo house of former […]
The Real Spain
A couple of weeks ago, Irene Lozano, head of the Spanish foreign ministry’s España Global department, launched a campaign called “This is the real Spain”. The idea was to try to ensure that outsiders got an idea of the country that was removed from the dark, Francoist vision that has long been presented by the […]
Spain’s people of 2018
Spain’s year began with a hangover from the traumatic recent events in Catalonia and moved into what looked like a semi-permanent state of political turmoil. There was upheaval as the corruption-plagued Popular Party was ousted from power and replaced by the Socialists. But renewed radicalism from both Spanish and Catalan nationalist politicians – and many […]
It’s tough at the top
Imagine you’re an ordinary guy, a writer and editor, say, who has a relatively low public profile but who is deeply committed to a political cause. Then imagine that one day you are plucked from your life of books and culture and are instantly transformed into a politician, the leader of the very cause you […]
Franco’s Rulebook
A few months ago, production company PBS invited me to contribute to a documentary they were making about Francisco Franco as part of their ‘Dictators Rulebook’ series. The series has now been shown on the National Geographic channel and is well worth watching (and not just because I’m in it). The Franco episode, dubbed into […]
