vicente soto: a spanish author in london … · biographical notes and exhibition guide by vincent...
TRANSCRIPT
VICENTE SOTO – BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
(Born February 1919, Valencia – Died
September 2011, Madrid)
Other than two years spent boarding at the
Roman Catholic ‘Escuelas Pías de Utiel’ (the
Piorists School of Utiel, province of Valencia)
Vicente Soto did his secondary school education
at the ‘Instituto Luis Vives de Valencia’,
completing it in 1936, just a few weeks before
the civil war broke out. At some point as a young
teenager and amongst rising political tensions in
Spain, Soto decided to join ‘F.U.E.’* – a student
organisation committed to anti-fascism and to
defending democracy and Republican values. In
addition he became part of the theatre group ‘El
Búho’**, known for its left-wing and liberal
stance on the arts. Literature on the history of ‘El
Búho’ confirms Vicente Soto’s involvement and
that he joined the troupe (like others) both as
actor and writer of brief ‘revolutionary’ and
‘experimental’ pieces which could then be
performed by the group at their chosen venues
away from the usual network of established
theatres. They were trying, in other words, to
reach beyond the bourgeois and educated
classes. It is not clear until when Soto managed
to remain part of ‘El Búho’ (which apparently
took its performances to the battle front).
Immersed in an environment of anti-fascist
fervour, Soto enlisted as a foot soldier in the
Republican army at the age of seventeen and
fought much of the Civil War on the Madrid
front.
Soto’s connection to ‘El Búho’ gives an
important glimpse of just how early his passion
for writing and the theatre began. After returning
to Valencia, he obtained his law degree at the
university (possibly between about 1940-44 –
although it is, as yet, unclear whether Soto began
his time at university just before he enlisted in
the army, or whether he had to wait until the war
ended). It was during his post-war time at
university, that Soto won the national award for
children’s theatre, the ‘Lope de Rueda’, with his
1942 play, Rosalinda. Having fought for the
Republicans, however, he found himself
constantly hounded by the authorities and (like
many of his friends) pulled in for questioning on
several occasions. Faced with this increasingly
dangerous environment, Soto wasted little time
in heading for the capital (probably in 1944) – a
city that had already won his heart and despite
being the seat of the new Fascist regime, would
prove a place where, at least in the short-term, he
could maintain a certain degree of anonymity.
At first relying on friends and
acquaintances for a roof over his head, Soto
eventually secured an office job in Madrid, in the
medical insurance company, ‘La Española’, and
it was here that he met his future wife, Blanca.
Perhaps as early as 1946, he joined a group of
left-wing writers and intellectuals who met
regularly at the central Madrid ‘Café Lisboa’ for
their ‘tertulias’ – calling themselves los
lisboetas. It was within this group that Vicente
Soto and Antonio Buero Vallejo first met (soon
after BV had been released from his seven-year
incarceration, as a political prisoner of Franco).
Professionally, creatively and emotionally, as
well as politically speaking, the two men were
immediately drawn to each other. As a struggling
playwright who had, like the others in the group,
‘lost the war’, BV turned to Vicente Soto for
help in presenting his play Historia de una
escalera (‘Story of a Staircase’) to the ‘Lope de
Vega’ national theatre award. Soto responded by
secretly typing out the play from BV’s
handwritten manuscript (on Soto’s office
typewriter, whilst BV sat by his side – a meeting
witnessed by his then-colleague Blanca, who
worked opposite him in the open-plan office).
The play went on to win the award in 1949 and
launched Buero Vallejo’s career. BV would later
dedicate his 1970 stage success El sueño de la
razón (‘The Sleep of Reason’), to Vicente Soto,
for his invaluable help in giving BV the initial
idea behind the play’s genesis. From their first
encounter at the Café Lisboa, a lifetime’s
friendship ensued (at times BV and VS were
more like brothers than friends) as nearly half a
century of correspondence and creative
exchanges between them attests to. This
correspondence is now celebrated in the recently
published book Cartas boca arriba,
Correspondencia 1954-2000 (compiled, edited
and prologued by Domingo Ródenas de Moya
for the Fundación Banco Santander, 2016).
A phrase which Vicente Soto often used to
explain why he (and others of similar political
persuasion and strong liberal convictions) felt
compelled to leave Spain was: “Podía haber
seguido viviendo en España a condición de no
poder vivir (“I could have continued to live in
Spain on condition that I not continue to live”).
Although he married Blanca and started a family
with her in Madrid, life in the capital proved
little better than in Valencia – lack of
opportunities and a stifling sense of oppression
continued. In the absence of any real freedom,
therefore, he felt forced into exile. After dallying
with the possibility of Paris for a while (where a
fellow lisboeta, José Corrales, had settled)
circumstances saw him leave for London in
August 1954 (ahead of his wife and daughter)
where he would soon make a life for himself and
his young family – and where he would forge his
life as a writer. Through his regular travels,
constant letter exchanges and, of course, the
Spanish language that he would explore through
his writings, Soto always maintained an
umbilical cord with his beloved motherland. But
this only drove into relief his existence as an
outsider. On his personal plight as an exile, he
felt somewhat trapped in a paradox, observing
that: “pierdes tu tierra, sin poder ganar la ajena”
(something like: “you lose your birth country,
but do not gain your adoptive one”). Vicente
Soto was thus forced to inhabit a kind of double
exteriority.
In London, he moved through a series of
jobs (some of them he held simultaneously)
These ranged from washing dishes at the
Majorca Restaurant (ending up as its secretary)
to freelance Spanish language teacher; working
for the COI (Central Office of Information);
theatre critic for the Spanish and Latin-American
BBC overseas service at Bush House; freelance
journalist for certain Spanish publications such
as the theatre journal ‘Primer Acto’; he was even
editor of an industrial machinery journal
(‘Industria Británica’ – part of Benn Bros. in
Fleet Street) and freelance translator of another
similar journal (‘Engineering Britain’); and for
several years worked as translator for various
UN organisations in London, ending up as the
chief translator of the Spanish section at the
UN’s International Maritime Organisation.
Soto dearly loved London and many
aspects of the British way of life, not least its
liberal politics, cosmopolitan nature and
enormously rich cultural life – London, for
instance, would always continue to feed his
passion for the theatre (witness his job at the
BBC, mentioned above). But Soto’s ‘añoranza’
(longing) for Spain was profound and
unremitting, and although he lived for the rest of
his life in the capital, he never felt completely
part of it – “Yo no vivo en Londres, vivo en una
casa de Londres” (“I do not live in London, I live
in a house in London”) he would say on
occasion. A life in London, on the other hand,
was a powerful catalyst for Soto’s writing –
something he always treasured – and it supplied
him with rich material for his narratives (such as
his collection of short stories, Casicuentos de
Londres, for which he won the award ‘Novelas y
Cuentos’ in 1973). Supported by his immediate
family, ultimately he took refuge in and strength
from his writing: ‘mi patria es mi trabajo’ could
have been his abiding sentiment (‘my country is
my work’).
* The ‘Federación Universitaria Escolar’ was an
anti-Franco, Spanish student organisation and a
national political force. It had pre-civil war
origins, but, not surprisingly, was declared
illegal by the Fascists after the civil war.
** Together with ‘El teatro del pueblo’ of
Alejandro Casona and ‘La Barraca’ of Federico
García Lorca’, ‘El Búho’ headed by Max Aub
was one of the three most prominent university
theatre groups of Spain’s Second Republic.
Apparently, ‘El Búho’ lasted from early 1934 to
late 1938. It was particularly associated with the
region and city of Valencia and like the other
two aforementioned university theatre groups,
took an unambiguously anti-fascist stance in its
non-elitist commitment, for instance, to bringing
high culture (such as Golden Age theatre) to the
neglected backwaters of Spain. El Búho’s clear
alignment to anti-fascist beliefs meant that it
could not continue beyond the civil war (with
perhaps its last performance occurring in 1938).
Vicente Soto won the ‘Premio Nadal’ in 1966
with his novel La zancada. In accordance with
tradition, the winning author was announced on
the last day of the year (whilst Vicente Soto was
at home in London) and the award was presented
in Madrid in early 1967.
The turning of 2016 into 2017 is thus the 50th
anniversary of Vicente Soto’s ‘Premio Nadal’.
Amongst his preferred authors of the modern era,
he would often cite Faulkner, Proust and Juan
Rulfo, along with Spanish writers such as Azorín
and Gabriel Miró (both of whom he is often
compared to).
Published literature of Vicente Soto:
THEATRE
CHILDREN’S THEATRE
Rosalinda (1942) [Premio Lope de Rueda]
Leonor (c.1943)
SHORT STORIES (collections and ‘stand-alone’
short narratives)
Vidas humildes, cuentos humildes (1948)------------collection
Los albaricoques. Ínsula. Nº 53, Mayo
1950---------‘stand-alone’
La prueba. Winner of the 1968 Premio
Gabriel Miró “
Concierto desesperado in La vuelta y 19
cuentos más
(finalist, Hucha de Oro, Madrid, 1973)-----
---------- “
Casicuentos de Londres (1973)-------------
------------collection
La bala in 12 Relatos (1974)----------------
-------------- ‘stand-alone’
Fa in El urogallo (1974)---------------------
-------------- “
Cardos para mi funeral. Ínsula. Nº 340
Marzo 1975-- “
El Girasol in El girasol y 19 cuentos más
(Winner, Hucha de Oro, Madrid, 1975)----
-------------- “
Cuentos del tiempo de nunca acabar (1977)---------- collection
Bajito + short autobiographical
introduction, in Un
Purgatorio (1984)-----------------------------
------------- ‘stand-alone’
La mano encontrada, in Antología del
cuento español
(1985)-------------------------------------------
------------- “
*La silueta en el suelo (1990)---------------
------------ “
*La final de Wimbledon (1990)------------
------------- “
*De caballos y hombres (1990)-------------
------------- “
*El prodigio de la Proffesora Winters
(1990)--------- “
*Fugitivos (1990)-----------------------------
------------- “
* All published as 'instantáneas'
from London in the Spanish
Newspaper, El Sol (1990-1992)
Pasos de nadie (1991)------------------------
------------collection
Cuentos de Aquí y de Allá (2000)----------
------------collection
Una hoja de otoño en el parabrisas (2002)----------‘stand-alone’
El retorno (2003)------------------------------
----------- “
NOVELS
La zancada (1966)
Bernard, uno que volaba (1972)
El gallo negro (1973)
Tres pesetas de historia (1983)
Una canción para un loco (1986)
Luna creciente, luna menguante (1993)
Mambrú no volverá (2001)
AWARDS
Lope de Rueda (1942, for ‘Rosalinda’)----
-----------------------------play
Nadal (1966, for ‘La zancada’)--------------
----------------------------novel
Gabriel Miró (1968, for 'La prueba')--------
---------------------------short story
Novelas y cuentos (1973, for ‘Casicuentos
de Londres’)-----------collection of short
stories
Hucha de Oro, finalist (1974, for
'Concierto desesperado')---------short story
Hucha de Oro, winner (1975, por 'El
Girasol')------------------------short story
Premio Internacional de Novela Plaza &
Janés,
finalist (1986, for ‘Una canción para un
loco’)------------------------novel
Premio de las Artes y las Ciencias de la
Comunidad Valenciana
(2001)-------------------------------------------
-----------------------‘Mambrú…’ +lifetime
award
Premio de la Crítica Valenciana (2002, por
‘Mambrú no volverá’)--novel
Premio Lluis Güarner (2002)----------------
-------------------lifetime achievement in
literature
A selection of other published material (non-
fiction) by Vicente Soto :
-----‘Un personaje en busca de obra’. Ínsula. Nº
260-261, Julio 1968.
-----‘Londres: El triunfo de Genet y Pinter’, in
Primer Acto. Nº 133 Junio 1971
-----‘Londres: Despues de la ira ¿la ira?’, in
Primer Acto. Nº 139 Diciembre 1971,
-----‘Londres: Teatro americano. Lo que va de
ayer (O’neill) a hoy (Albee)’, in Primer Acto.
Nº 142 Marzo 1972
-----‘Yerma ante la crítica’. Primer Acto. Nº 145
Junio 1972. 67-73.
-----‘Londres: De la “pornografía” a la
excepción’, in Primer Acto. Nº 151 Diciembre
1972
-----‘Teatro en Londres’. Ínsula. Nº 323, Octubre
1973.
-----‘El teatro de un año (1973)’. Ínsula. Nº 328
Marzo 1974.
-----‘No Man’s Land, de Harold Pinter, en el Old
Vic’. Ínsula. Nº 346 Septiembre 1975.
-----‘La doble historia del doctor Valmy, de
Buero Vallejo’. Primer Acto. Nº 107 Abril
1969. 61-62.
-----‘Las narraciones de Vicente Soto.
Intervención de Vicente Soto’. La novela
española
EXHIBITION GUIDE
Vicente Soto Collection – List of display items,
with some accompanying text
Although the items on display here at
King’s College London are just a small selection
of his oeuvre, they manage to represent, amongst
other things, the different literary genres that
Vicente Soto explored – namely the novel, the
short story and drama. Even the ‘art’ of letter
writing is here represented by the book Cartas
boca arriba – a written conversation extending
over nearly half a century, that both protagonists,
Vicente Soto and Antonio Buero Vallejo,
frequently turn into another literary genre.
Books Novels – La zancada (original hardback,
7th edition)- Premio Nadal, 1966
– Tres pesetas de historia (1st
edition, 1983) [Pease see below for
extra items and explanation
relating to the novel]
– Russian edition of Tres pesetas
de historia (1st edition, 1986;
edited by Natalia Matiash)
Short Story Collections – Vidas humildes,
cuentos humildes (1st edition,
1948)
– Casicuentos de
Londres (1st edition) -
Premio
Novelas y
Cuentos, 1973
Plays – Rosalinda typescript, foolscap,
c1942. (‘Premio Lope de Rueda’,
1942 – national drama award for
children’s theatre). On display is
the author’s personal working copy
with his own pencil notes,
additions and amendments
– Playbill for performance of
Rosalinda in Paterna, Valencia,
c1943
– unauthorised prose version
(greatly reduced and simplified,
post 1942) for ‘the younger
reader’ (Vicente Soto was never
actually aware of the existence of
this abbreviated version of
Rosalinda – the copy on display
was purchased by the family
after the writer’s death in 2011).
Both Rosalinda and Vidas
humildes, cuentos humildes were written
and published in the early phase of
Vicente Soto’s career, when he was still
living in Spain, before his self-exile to
London.
The first work that Soto published
was his play, Rosalinda. This won him the
‘Premio Lope de Rueda’ (a national award
for children’s theatre) in 1942, while he
was back in his home town, Valencia,
after the civil war and reading law at the
university. No published copy of the full
and original version of the play has yet
been found. It was first performed at the
‘Maria Guerrero’ theatre, Madrid (March
1943) and later at the ‘Apolo’ and
‘Alcázar’ theatres in Valencia.
It is in this early ‘Spanish’ phase
that Soto demonstrates strong inclinations
towards both narrative prose and the
theatre (an important strand of his work
that is frequently overlooked). Apart from
Rosalinda, and while still in his early
twenties, he was also to bring to the stage
Leonor (like Rosalinda, ostensibly for
children and adolescents and also
apparently inspired by the Spanish
‘romancero’ or Spanish ballad)1. Soto’s
love for drama would persist and these
two early plays were later accompanied by
other (as yet unpublished) plays that could
well have been written after his move to
London.
His early demonstration of story-
telling and narrative talents (the novel and
the short story would soon become his
preferred genres) emerged in one of his
first narrative ventures, Vidas humildes,
cuentos humildes (published in1948). The
appearance of this ‘librito’ (as Soto liked
1 This play was also staged at the Maria Guerrero theatre, Madrid, and under
the direction of the same Lope de Rueda theatrical ensemble that had staged
Rosalinda. Unfortunately, no copy of Leonor (published or otherwise) has
yet been found.
to call it) was very close in time to his
involvement with Antonio Buero Vallejo’s
Historia de una escalera (1949). That the
two writers were by now firm friends is
perhaps demonstrated by the fact that the
introduction to Vidas humildes was written
by Agustín del Campo, BV’s soon-to-be
brother-in-law and also a lisboeta.
Between the publications of Vidas
humildes (1948) and La zancada (1966 –
although Soto completed this novel in
October 1965) there is a hiatus of
seventeen or eighteen years when nothing
seems to have been published by him
(save, perhaps, Soto’s short story Los
albaricoques, published in 1950 in the
Journal ‘Insula’ and again in 1959 as part
of the Antología de cuentistas españoles
contemporáneos. 1939 – 1958, ed. by
Francisco García Pavón, who was also a
lisboeta). Editorial and publishing silence
did not, however, mean creative silence.
Far from it. It is during this period that
Soto and his family, uprooted themselves
from Spain, in order to make a new start in
England. At one point holding down three
jobs at once, it became increasingly
difficult for Soto to find time to write. But
family responsibilities only seemed to
strengthen his resolve to continue writing,
whenever and wherever he could.
Soto often referred to his journeys
in to work on the London underground or
tube as ‘el tunel del tiempo’ – a place
‘donde podía robar el tiempo’ (‘where I
could steal time’). And it was in this ‘time
tunnel’ that he developed his characteristic
multi-coloured shorthand on small,
pocket-sized, scraps of paper that he had
prepared earlier (examples of which are in
this small exhibit). Not only did this
abbreviated script maximise his precious
time on the tube, but (he later confessed)
its illegibility would also frustrate any
attempts at eavesdropping from prying
eyes (whether these be Spanish or not).
Much of La zancada, he often
insisted, was first written in this manner,
in ‘el tunel del tiempo’. More than simply
shorthand, this form of recording his
thoughts became, for Soto, an intimate
part of his creative process. His hunger to
create, meant that Soto often had several
irons in the fire and before even
embarking on the ‘zancada’ project (which
probably lasted several years), he was
continuing to write drama – as half a
dozen or so unpublished plays attest to
(carbon copies of which are held in the
Vicente Soto Collection in King’s
College). The suggestion that at least some
of these dramas are from Soto’s early
phase in London is perhaps strongly
supported by the fact that attached to one
of Antonio Buero Vallejo’s earliest letters
sent to Soto in London, is a newspaper
cutting publishing the rules and
regulations for the next ‘Lope de Vega’
drama award 2.
Buero Vallejo inscription – 2 copies of BV’s
play Un soñador para un pueblo
(1958). The
inscription reads: “A Vicente
Soto,
2 Copies of all the letters from the correspondence between Vicente Soto
and Antonio Buero Vallejo, form part of the Vicente Soto Collection and are
held in the King’s College archives.
viejo amigo de
todas las horas, con el abrazo
fraterno de Antonio
Buero Vallejo – Madrid,
Diciembre de
1959” [‘To Vicente Soto, old friend
for all hours, with
the brotherly embrace of
Antonio Buero
Vallejo – Madrid, December
1959’]. This play
was premiered in Madrid,
December 1958
and received two awards: the
Premio María
Rolland and the Premio Nacional de
Teatro.
As part of the correspondence between Soto and
Buero Vallejo, several books and articles, etc. by
the two writers were sent to each other – often
these books were in lieu of actual letters and the
vast majority carry dedications. Practically all of
the books by Buero Vallejo that have
inscriptions to Vicente Soto (well over thirty) are
in the Vicente Soto Collection3 along with others
that have not been dedicated but nonetheless
belonged to Soto.
Archive items – handwritten notes, showing
Soto’s characteristic use of
different coloured inks and also
his personal shorthand.
(paragraph taken from above text, under
‘Books’)
Vicente Soto often referred to his journeys in to
work on the London underground or tube as ‘el
tunel del tiempo’ – a place ‘donde podía robar el
tiempo’ (‘where I could steal time’). And it was
in this ‘time tunnel’ that he developed his
characteristic multi-coloured shorthand on small,
pocket-sized, scraps of paper that he had
prepared earlier (examples of which are in this
small exhibit). Not only did this abbreviated
script maximise his precious time on the tube,
but (he later confessed) its illegibility would also
frustrate any attempts at eavesdropping from
3 Two noteworthy examples are, for the time being, retained in the Soto
family archive. These are the 1st book dedicated to Soto – Historia de una
esclera – and BV’s 1970 play, El sueño de la razón, that is published in a
copy of the theatre journal ‘Primer Acto’.
prying eyes (whether these be Spanish or not).
Soto often kept handy scraps of paper in his top
shirt pocket along with a biro and a pair of
glasses, ready for immediate use. More than
simply shorthand, this form of recording his
thoughts became, for Soto, an intimate part of his
creative process.
– Two postcards from Natalia
Matiash (Moscow, 1987)
regarding Tres pesetas de
historia. Dr. Matiash edited the
Russian edition of this novel,
also displayed here, translated
several other works by Soto,
and would also feature his work
in her article, ‘España
posfranquista vista en el espejo de la
literatura’ [‘Post-Francoist
Spain as seen in the mirror of
literature’] in Ciencias
Sociales (Academia de Ciencias de la
URSS), no. 3 (73) 1988. This
journal is, at present, held in the
Soto family archive.
– Invitation and menu for
celebratory dinner following the
award of the Premio Nadal for
La Zancada, held in Valencia
in 1967.
Extra items relating to Tres pesetas de historia
Tres pesetas poster – this was a publicity poster
designed for the release of the novel in 1983.
From Tres pesetas de historia ‘parcel’: three
Republican one-peseta banknotes; handwritten
letter; UGTE lapel badge.
Sometime in 1980, Vicente and Blanca Soto
made a short trip to Madrid, where they visited
the well-known ‘Rastro’ antique market. Neither
Vicente nor Blanca were ever at all religious (far
from it). Yet they shared a love of art and their
life in London (with all its antique markets and
fairs, etc.) had fed their appetite (especially in
the case of Blanca) for ‘interesting objects’.
From one of the many stalls, Blanca purchased
three cheap and rather naïve religious prints (a
pieta, a Virgin and Child in Heaven and a saint –
unidentified – with the Christ child) that all sat
behind hand decorated glass. Upon their return to
London, Blanca took the pictures out of their
frames (all the same size and a little larger than
A3) in order to clean the glass and take a better
look at the prints that had passages of crudely
applied hand-colouring. Carefully lodged behind
the Virgin and Child print was a small bundle,
tied together with a length of black cotton thread.
After nervously untying this thread, secreted
inside the precious bundle she discovered the
items now on display:
Three Republican one-peseta banknotes; a
handwritten letter; a UGTE lapel badge.
The short letter reads:
Villacarrillo 15 de
Diciembre
Sra Dña Josefa
Villar
Muy Sra mia: Hoy mismo le remito un
giro de 12’50 pts. que pertenecian
a su marido q.e.p.d.
Eran trece pesetas pero menos 0’35
centimos de poner el giro y un sello que le
remito que con el importe del giro y esto
suma las 13’00 pts.
Saludos
[illegible
signature]
------------------------------
Villacarrillo 15th
December
Sra Dña Josefa
Villar
Dear Madam: I hereby enclose for you
today a money order of 12’50 pts. that
belonged to your husband r.i.p. [the
original initials are q.e.p.d. standing for
que en paz descanse – viz. ‘may he rest in
peace’]
There were thirteen pesetas but
minus 0’35 cents for placing the money
order and a stamp which I enclose which
with the cost of the money order and this
come to the 13’00 pts.
Regards
[illegible
signature]
It is apparent from this rather curt letter
with bad syntax that a woman has lost her
husband and that someone (maybe from the
authorities, but this would be a guess) is
returning his worldly goods to her. We do not
know the husband’s name, the circumstances of
his death, nor the year of the letter (although the
Republican currency left by the widow in the
package strongly suggests that it is either during
or just after the civil war, when this currency
obviously ceased). From the husband’s original
13’00 pesetas, and with cold efficiency, the
authorities(?) have deducted 0’50 cents, citing
the cost of postage and a money order. Of the
items sent to the widow, Doña Josefa Villar,
someone (perhaps herself, a sibling or a child)
presumably decided to form a small parcel
containing 3 Republican pesetas, the letter itself
and her husband’s ‘UGTE’ lapel badge4, as if to
encapsulate her husband’s life and (we assume)
4 ‘UGTE’ were the initials that originally stood for ‘Union General de
Trabajadores Españoles’ – i.e. the Spanish workers’ trade union. The union
had been founded in 1888 at the same time as PSOE (Partido Socialista de
Obreros Españoles) and by the same man, Pablo Iglesias. Franco’s victory in
1939 forced the trade union into exile and clandestine activity within Spain.
It was re-legalized in 1977, two years after Franco’s death. Over time, the
‘E’ was dropped from ‘UGTE’ (it is unclear at which point this occurred)
and the trade union became simply the ‘UGT’, i.e. ‘General Union of
Workers’).
the cause he died for. The widow’s impulse to
place the precious parcel in the bosom of a
religious figure, or its simulacrum gave the
parcel an almost reliquary status.
Beyond any emotive or artistic/religious
reason for placing the parcel behind the image of
a holy figure, the fact that the little bundle was
actually concealed at all, is of great historical
interest in itself. It was the parcel and its
contents, and the fact that they had been hidden,
that immediately caught the imagination of
Vicente Soto who had, of course, fought with the
Republicans against Franco and knew
instinctively that the Civil War lay at the heart of
whatever the parcel had to tell. In Soto’s
eventual novel, the narrator (‘Viz’) speculates
that the bundle was placed where it was in order
to hide it in a safe place: no-one would suspect a
framed religious print of harbouring subversive
(to the franquistas) material.
Crucially, the letter was headed by the
name of the widow and the village where she
then lived (Villacarrillo – a village in Jaén,
Andalusia). This was all that was needed for
Vicente and his wife Blanca to embark on a
summer of exploratory travels to Jaén and other
regions of Spain. The research they conducted –
consisting not only of taped interviews (these
tapes are, at present, in the Soto family archive)
but also of intense lived experiences that they
shared with the people they met and befriended5
– became the basis of the ‘semi-fictional’ novel6
upon which Vicente Soto would work for the
next few years, culminating in Tres pesetas de
historia (1983).
Further items on display:
Framed pencil sketch of Vicente Soto by
Enrique Buero Rodríguez (Antonio Buero
Vallejo’s youngest son), 1980.
5 At least on one occasion, Vicente and Blanca were present at the
exhumation of a Republican victim of Franco from an unmarked,
coffin-less grave in order to re-bury him in a properly identified and
consecrated plot.
6 Vicente Soto’s novel is in fact part of a tradition currently called
‘autofiction’ as Domingo Ródenas has pointed out on numerous occasions.
As in so much else in Vicente Soto’s oeuvre that is somehow ahead of its
time, Tres pesetas also precedes the emergence of ‘autofictional’ texts in Spain.
Just like his father, Quique (as he was
known to friends and family) was drawn
towards both the fine arts and the stage
(although here, more as actor than as
playwright). At the age of 25, he was
tragically killed in a car accident just
outside Madrid, on 7th June 1986.
The pencil drawing on display is of
Vicente Soto at a press conference in
Madrid (possibly at ‘El Ateneo de
Madrid’) and uses a technique that is not
all that dissimilar to many drawings made
by Antonio Buero Vallejo (who was
himself an academically trained artist
before deciding to concentrate on the
letters).
Forges cartoon, 1973
For many decades Antonio Fraguas has
played an integral part in Spanish
contemporary culture. Forges (his nom de
plume) is perhaps best known for his
humorous daily cartoons for El País that
usually have a sardonic edge to them. He
also writes, is a director of film and
television and has participated in several
Spanish radio productions.
It was back in the 1980s that Forges and
Vicente Soto first met in person at an
official gathering of artists and
intellectuals in Spain (very probably in
Madrid). There is a certain amount of
correspondence between them, of which
the ‘working drawing/cartoon’ seen here
on display, forms part. Forges sometimes
referred to Vicente Soto as ‘el poeta’ and
claims to have ‘un papelito’ (a small piece
of paper) with a poem by Soto.
VICENTE SOTO Exhibition– photos:
Photos in exhibition
– VS in garden (colour), c2004
-- VS writing at desk after receiving
Premio Nadal, 1967
-- VS in front of bookshop window,
Madrid, 1954 (see below)
-- VS outside the Cheshire Cheese pub,
Fleet Street, c1976
Vicente Soto at 35 years old, in May 1954 (not
long before his journey to London in August),
browsing in a bookshop window in central
Madrid. He must have visited this very bookshop
many times before, as it was in the same street
(calle Argensola) as his workplace, ‘La
Española’ (a medical insurance company) where
he met his wife Blanca and where he secretly
typed out the play Historia de una escalera
(1948) for Antonio Buero Vallejo.
As his journey into ‘the unknown’ loomed large
(viz. England, and all that this journey would
mean for him and his family) Vicente Soto sent
this photo of himself as a ‘keepsake’ to his
mother, Isabel, in Valencia; he inscribed the rear
of the photo, in the form of a little rhyming
couplet – “Para mi madre Isabel, de su hijo
Viquentel, 13.V.54” (“For my mother, Isabel,
from her son Viquentel, 13.V.54”).
Vicente Soto and Antonio Buero Vallejo. This
humorous snapshot shows the two friends
fooling around at the fair – probably in the Casa
de Campo, Madrid, Spring/Summer 1951. Buero
Vallejo was by now a well-known playwright. A
few years previously, Soto had typed out BV’s
play, Historia de una escalera, enabling BV
(who never learnt how to type) to present the
play to the ‘Premio Lope de Vega’. The play
went on to win the award and was a big critical
and public success on stage, thus launching BV’s
career. The photo was taken shortly before the
marriage between Vicente and Blanca on 2nd
July, and at which Buero Vallejo would be the
so-called ‘testigo de boda’ (the nearest
equivalent in the British culture would be the
‘best man’) signing as the witness on the
marriage paperwork.
arriba, (ed.) Domingo Ródenas de Moya
(Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid, 2016).
At the Soto ‘house’ (actually a small apartment
within a house, plus use of a back yard), Ciudad
Jardín, Madrid, August 1951, one month after
the marriage between Vicente and Blanca. From
left to right: Guzmán (photographer friend,
attached to ‘los lisboetas’* and who very likely
facilitated Vicente Soto’s first job in London, at
the ‘Majorca’ restaurant), Antonio Buero
Vallejo, Vicente Soto and Blanca Soto (née
García Iñiguez – holding on to the family dog,
Lobo – a vital character in Vicente Soto’s 1966
novel, La zancada, awarded the Premio Nadal).
The photograph was probably taken by Vicente’s
brother, Paco.
* After the Civil War, literati and intellectuals of
anti-Franco sentiment would gather at the Café
Lisboa and it was here where Vicente Soto and
Antonio Buero Vallejo first became acquainted
with one another. In this central Madrid café, just
off La Puerta del Sol, the left-wing writers, poets
and intellectuals chose to have their regular
tertulias. Calling themselves affectionately ‘los
lisboetas’, they used their regular social
gatherings to discuss everything from literature
to current affairs, as well as hosting regular
readings of their work, even organising literary
competitions.
Blanca Soto (née María Nieves García Iñiguez)
with Lobo.
This very image was used as the model/template
for the cover of Soto’s 1966 novel, La zancada
(in which Lobo is a key character) and the photo
was taken on the same occasion as the one
above.
The image shows VS flanked by two other
important figures of the literary world – the
academic Guillermo Diaz-Plaja (to VS’s right)
and the literary critic Dámaso Santos. The
occasion was the presentation of the ‘Premio
Novelas y Cuentos’ (1973) awarded to VS for
his short story collection, Casicuentos de
Londres.