FROM A SPANISH PRISON

by Eva Forest ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 15, 1976

Eva Forest is a Spanish communist opposed to ""anti-human"" violence, but in 1974 she was arrested for alleged involvement in a cafe bombing and the murder of the Spanish prime minister; this is her brief prison journal with a selection of letters to her two teenage children. Forest's most acute concern was her loving commitment to her family--on a personal level as a devoted mother but also, in a larger context, as a member of a ""micro-cell of society."" A family, she feels, should be a unit freed from arbitrary rules and authorities and fired by an open-ended exchange of ideas--a small community of active, creative equals deeply involved in the betterment of mankind. She exhorts her children--with generous praise and gentle ""dialectical"" criticism--to ""look and see and feel things and be amazed. . . not go through life like so many sleepwalkers."" Though she does not detail her prison sufferings, she admits to initial ""desolation."" But she ""is not sorry to have had the experience. . . it's given me material for an article on psychology."" Eva Forest is a strong, vital woman who--whether one regards her charge to her offspring as the breath of life or a burden--is a maternal model of courage and loyalty to her own. A bit doctrinaire for general readership, but an affecting, progressive view of the family.

Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION