About
Jorge Semprún Maura, born in Madrid in 1923, lived in exile in Paris from 1937. A communist resistance fighter during World War II, he was deported to Buchenwald. After the war, he clandestinely coordinated the Spanish Communist Party under the pseudonym Federico Sánchez. Expelled from the party in 1964, he devoted himself to writing, publishing novels about his concentration camp experience. He also worked as a screenwriter and served as Spain's Minister of Culture (1988-1991). Elected to the Académie Goncourt in 1996, he died in Paris in 2011.
* 1923-12-10 — † 2011-06-07
Major works
- Le Grand Voyage (1963)novel
- Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez (1977)autobiography
- Quel beau dimanche! (1980)novel
- L'Écriture ou la vie (1994)narrative
Key milestones
- 1943Arrested by the Gestapo and deported to Buchenwald in January 1944.
- 1988Appointed Spain's Minister of Culture, serving until 1991.
- 1996First non-French author elected to the Académie Goncourt.
Themes
Memory and testimony of deportationExile and identityPolitical commitment and communismWriting and survivalHistory and totalitarianism
Sources: jorgesemprun.cultura.gob.es · buchenwald.de · stiftung-ettersberg.de