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Book Reviews (excerpts)
Miguel de Unamuno y Bernardo G. de Candamo: Amistad y Epistolario (1899-1936)
Jesús Alfonso Blázquez González
Foreword by Luis G. de Candamo
Madrid: Ediciones 98, 2007
410 pages, illustrations, 17X24 cm.
ISBN 84-935894-0-0
€ 25 (International orders: plus shipping and handling: 22 €)
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Miguel de Unamuno and Bernardo G. de Candamo: Amistad y Epistolario (1899-1936) reconstructs the personal and literary relationship between the two figures, spanning nearly forty years. The book is divided into two distinct parts. The first tells the story of the friendship through the biography of the least known of the two, Candamo, and its intersection with the life of Unamuno. The second is the transcript of the principal and most direct testimony of that friendship: the ninety-seven, mostly unpublished letters, that were exchanged over several decades.
Jesus Blázquez (Cebreros, Avila, 1962) is a graduate of the School of Geography and History at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he has also done extensive doctoral work. He holds a Master's Degree in Library Science and Documentation from the National Library of Spain, and has participated in numerous seminars and conferences in Spain, Austria, the United Kingdom and the United States. He combines his professional work in the field of documentation with historical research and has published a number of articles. During the past few years he has devoted himself to studying the social history of Spanish literary circles from the Crisis of 1898 until the outbreak of civil conflict in 1936.
Jesus Blázquez has recently published an extensive article on one of the protagonists of the book: "Bernardo G. de Candamo, escritor modernista miembro de la Generación del 98" (Bernardo G. de Candamo, modernist writer of the Generation of 98") in the Boletín de la Asociación de la Prensa de Madrid, Bulletin of the Press Association of Madrid , number 67, March 2007 http://www.apmadrid.es/images/publicaciones/Boletin/Boletin67/APM67_26.pdf
"A magnificent testimony of Spanish life and literature at the beginning of the 20th Century."¨
–Luis García Jambrina, ABC
"Jesús Blázquez has published a very interesting collection of letters (that has gone unnoticed and I take this opportunity to call attention to this) between Bernardo Candamo and don Miguel de Unamuno."
–Santos Sanz Villanueva, El Mundo
"As scholars we must be thankful for the discovery of this collection of letters from the beginning of the last century."
–José Carlos Mainer, Revista de Libros
"Readers will immediately realize that what they are reading is the product of extensive research, with rigorously documented information, the result of painstaking work that provides greater knowledge of Candamo, no doubt, but also of Unamuno, and through them and their worlds, of the intellectual history of contemporary Spain."
–Pedro Ribas Ribas, Cuadernos de la Cátedra Miguel de Unamuno
"Quite excellent and interesting. Along with the limpid portrait of Unamuno that readers will find in Blázquez’s introduction and the collection of letters, this book has the great virtue of vindicating the figure of Candamo."
–John Ardila, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
"Some books are real finds. The one presented at the La Nueva España Press Club can be classified under that selective heading."
–Luis Arias Argüelles-Meres, La Nueva España
"In this work, the author offers us exhaustive information on the close literary and personal relationship that Unamuno had throughout his life with the writer and critic Bernardo González de Candamo. There are a total of 97 letters, and many are unpublished to date, a fact that alone gives an idea of the enormous significance of this book."
–Antonio José López Cruces, Eikasia, revista de Filosofía
"Extremely interesting."
–C. Alex Longhurst, King's College of London
Bulletin of Spanish Studies
"In his book, Unamuno y Candamo. Amistad y epistolario (1899-1936), Jesús Blázquez brings to light the figure of Bernardo G. de Candamo, a member of the world of culture who, despite his importance, had fallen into oblivion."
–Javier Rodríguez, Director, Asturian Press Club
La Nueva España
"Unamuno considered Candamo his best disciple. The letters he wrote to him are more than just letters, they are splendid literature."
–José Luis García Martín,
La Opinión de la Coruña
"The study has two assets: the careful reconstruction of a friendship through the biography of Bernardo G. de Candamo focusing on his relationship with Miguel de Unamuno, and the publishing of the correspondence between the two in both directions (not common), totalling 97 letters. Through these we can perceive the ebb and flow of relations within modernist and noventayochista circles at the beginning of the 20th Century."
–Pere Maragall i Mira, professor of Spanish Literature, Institute of Catalan Letters
"Letters and more letters must be written. They will then not be classic, as was Rilke’s “Letter to a Young Poet,” that has its no lesser equivalent in the letters Unamuno wrote to Bernardo de Candamo."
–Olegario González de Cardedal
ABC, 26 August 2008
