ABSTRACT
Josena Aldecoa was ten years old when Civil War swept across Spain in 1936. As she recalled in her 2004 memoir, En la distancia [In the Distance], the War proved to be a psychological tipping point that abruptly ended her youthful naiveté and introduced her to a culture overrun with violence and oppression. Aldecoa spent the war years with her family in the provincial city of León, where she experienced rst-hand the material scarcity brought on by the conict as well as the contagious atmosphere of fear-sporadic bombing raids; individuals stolen in the night by Nationalist soldiers, never to reappear; the execution of her much-admired elementary school teacher. Somewhat paradoxically, however, Aldecoa also evokes a felicitous childhood during the war years. None of her immediate family was imprisoned or executed, and as she observed in her memoir, “El niño es biológicamente alegre y sólo necesita tener seguridad en los afectos de los seres que le rodean… . En plena guerra, entre el temor de los adultos, la inseguridad del presente y la incertidumbre del futuro, yo tuve una infancia feliz, una infancia protegida, cuidada, serena” (39) [A child is biologically happy and only needs to feel affection from those around him… . In the middle of War, amid the fear of adults, the insecurity of the present, and the uncertainty of the future, I had a happy childhood, a protected, cared for, and serene childhood].
