Radical Spanish novelist, newspaper columnist and cultural commentator determined to tell the truth about Franco’s eraAlmudena Grandes, who has died of
cancer aged 61, achieved the rare feat of being both a very popular and a highly serious writer. A bestselling novelist, newspaper columnist, radio commentator and outspoken leftwinger in her native
Spain, she became the main literary voice of a mass movement to recover her country’s historical memory.
The government of José María Aznar in the early 2000s encouraged rightwing revisionism that falsified the history of the Spanish civil war and prettified Franco. In response, anti-Francoists and their descendants began to speak out against the murders, torture and imprisonments of the dictatorship. Even today, disgracefully, over 114,000 victims of Franco still lie in unmarked graves.