Blanco White series: Madrid-London, 1940s. Two stories of culture, diplomacy and espionage.

Madrid-London, 1940s. The Spanish capital faces a tough post-war era. The British capital resists Nazi bombings. Each of the two cities seems to be waging its own battle, but they both need one another. That is why they would go on to become centre stage to some of the most fascinating cultural diplomacy initiatives of 20th-century Europe. On one hand, the British Council would make efforts in Madrid to offset the Germanophile sympathies of the first Francoism. On the other hand, the Spanish Institute and the Institute of Spain would compete in London to incline British public opinion toward the Republican side and the Franco side respectively. Spies and diplomats, poets and publishers, taverns and tearooms would provide the backdrop of the dark years in which the two capitals were, at the same time, more confronted and closer than ever.

Two distinguished guests will join us to tell us more about the British Council in Madrid and the Spanish institutes in London:

Marina Pérez de Arcos teaches at the LSE and at the University of Oxford, where she studied and earned her DPhil in International Relations. She was the BritishSpanish Society’s Santander scholar and has been a G20 advisor at the Spanish Presidency. She is the Spanish Studies at Oxford Coordinator and is co-founder and Director of the Oxford Spanish Play, the first theatre company to perform in Spanish at Oxford.

Eva Díaz Pérez, author of novels such as The Club Of The Memory (Nadal Prize Finalist) and Adriatic (Malaga Novel Prize and Andalusia Critics Award). Her essays include The Andalusia of Exile, the literary guide Sevilla or the biography Salvador Távora. She has covered cultural issues for Spanish newspaper El Mundo for more than twenty years. She now does a similar work for other Spanish mainstream media like El Pais or ABC.

Part of our Blanco White series.

Event organized together with the British Spanish Society and in collaboration with the Spanish Studies at Oxford.

Free entry