Episode 31 with Aaron Shulman

With a father who went from communist to fascist, a mother who lived life as a romantic novel and sons who alternated between madness and genius, the Paneros were a family of poets for whom melodrama was a way of life.  A 1976 documentary about the family became a surprise hit that seemed to strike a chord in wake of Franco’s death.  Journalist Aaron Shulman joins the program to tell this family’s fascinating story and to discuss what it can reveal about legacies left by the tragic years of civil war and dictatorship in Spain.

The Episode

The Guest

Aaron Shulman is the author of the non-fiction historical narrative The Age of Disenchantments: The Epic Story of Spain’s Most Notorious Literary Family and the Long Shadow of the Spanish Civil War (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2019).  A former Fulbright scholar, his work has appeared in The Believer, The New Republic, The American Scholar, The Wall Street Journal, El País (Spain), Hazlitt and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among many other places. He is the co-owner of the book-coaching agency Splash Literary.

Suggested Reading

• Blanc, Felicidad. Espejo de sombras. Argos Vergara, 1981.
• Brenan, Gerald. The Face of Spain. New York: Grove Press, 1957.
• Castellet, J. M., ed. Nueve novísimos poetas españoles. Ediciones Penísula, 2018.
• Cercas, Javier. The Anatomy of a Moment. Bloomsbury, 2011.
• Chávarri, Jaime, dir. El Desencanto. 1976.
• Fernández, J. Beniro. El contorno del abismo. Tusquets, 2006.
• Franco, Ricardo, dir. Después de tantos años. 1994.
• Marsé, Juan. La muchacha de las bragas de oro. Debolsillo, 2016.
• Montero, Rosa. Crónica del desamor. Debolsillo, 2015.
• Panero, Juan Luis. Poesía completa. Tusquets, 1997.
• Panero, Leopoldo María. Poesía completa. Visor Libros, 2012.
• Panero, Micho and Javier Mendoza. Funerales vikingos/El desconcierto. Bartleby, 2017.
• Panero, Leopoldo. En lo oscuro. Cátedra, 2011.