ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways in which Ramón J. Sender, the prolific 20th century exiled Spanish novelist, dealt with the legacy of his wife’s execution in Zamora during 1936 at the hands of falangists. Escaping Spain at the end of the Spanish Civil War, Sender brought their two children with him, and they were raised by an adoptive mother in the United States. Meanwhile, Sender remarried and continued to write and teach in the United States. Despite producing an oeuvre that was heavily influenced by his own life experiences, Sender refused to talk with his own children about their mother. After Sender died, his son, Ramón Sender Barayón was finally free to research and subsequently write A Death in Zamora about his mother’s life and death. This chapter examines the Spanish novelist’s life in the United States, and his attempts to suppress the memory of his children’s mother.
