The War Godmother by José Antonio Lucero

About the book

This book is a tribute to the war godmothers. To so many Spanish mothers and women who during the civil war gave moral support to soldiers who had no family, becoming war godmothers, a figure as widespread and valuable during the 20th century as it is unknown today.

To give an example, the mother of Arturo Pérez Reverte or that of Joaquín Sabina were. The term is barely known, but almost all of us have a woman in the family who had a “godson” during the Spanish Civil War.

THE ARTICLE THAT INSPIRED EVERYTHING…
In 2016 Arturo Pérez Reverte published his usual article in XLSemanal, this time to share a family story. In it he tells how a lieutenant who was passing through a town near Cartagena, asked a young woman to be his war godmother. She accepts and gives him a photo of herself to accompany him during the war, with the peculiarity that the photo, far from being current, was from when she was a baby. The officer laughs at this gesture and goes to war with the photograph. Years later, the lieutenant returns to the young woman, who is now a woman, to thank her: her photo has been an amulet that has accompanied him throughout the war. The young woman, called Lola, was Pérez Reverte’s mother. This article captivated the author of Life in a Minute, who could not help but immerse himself in a deep investigation into the figure of war godmothers… until he wrote a novel in tribute to them.

Can a love letter change a life or stop a war? Would you wait for those words until the end of your days?

Madrid, December 1936. Aurora has just come of age and works as a nurse in a turbulent city that resists the bombs of war. In this climate of violence she begins to correspond with a young republican soldier, Teófilo, thus becoming – like many other women of the time – a war godmother. In each letter, young people will find a refuge where they can express fears and secrets that they cannot say out loud while discovering a love they never imagined. However, in a war full of intrigue and espionage and in which everyone is suspected, the written word can be the most dangerous weapon… When years later, isolated in the silence of Franco’s rule, Teófilo finds out that Aurora is still alive, He does not hesitate to try to recover the person who, between fire and gunpowder, made love, hope and peace flourish in him.

*Original content provided by the publisher Ediciones B