EL TIEMPO DE LOS HEROES

In EL TIEMPO DE LOS HEROES (The Age of Heroes) Javier Reverte reclaims the biography of one Juan Guilloto León, a sawyer of humble background who rose to General of the Republican Army known as General Juan Modesto during the Spanish Civil War. Like the Greek and Roman heroes he was in the eyes of his men a "man made for warfare". The novelized biography picks up in the last days of the Civil War in 1939, after the defeat of the Republican army in the battles of Ebro and Catalonia and Madrid about to fall into the hands of the Franquist troops: Juan Modesto reminisces about growing up in Andalucia , his arrival to the capital and the days of resistance against fascism, his love affairs and the numerous battles that he fought with his regiment and the international brigades. His courage and bravery were legendary. After the war he went into exile and died forgotten in Prague in 1969.