The Tomb in Seville

– Crossing Spain on the Brink of Civil War –

“While the rumblings of oncoming war shook a divided Spain, Norman Lewis and his brother-in-law Eugene Corvaja traveled through the Spanish countryside to the family tomb in Seville. Nearly seventy years later, in prose that is witty, understated, and poignant, Lewis describes the duo’s travels first to Madrid, then through the bloody insurrection of October ’34, and finally via the length of Portugal to Seville. …

Of course, things do not go quite according to the travelers’ plans. Spain is on the brink of civil war, and the two soon discover that no trains are running. They cover a hundred miles on foot and seeing parts of  Spain few tourists had ever visited. By the time they reach Madrid, bullets are flying, and the travelers are forced to dodge sniper fire as they go about their business. Eugene by now has revealed his Communist sympathies and Lewis, in loco parentis, attempts to dissuade him from joining the People’s Army. Forced to take a detour into Portugal, they come across a village where a witch has recently been burned at the stake, before at last arriving in Seville. There they find the Corvaja tomb, though the memorial is not what they expected.

In this, Lewis’s last book before his death in 2003, the writer … conjures up the country he returned to time and again in his writing and displays the spirit of pure fascination that has inspired generations of readers. Lewis’s  sweetly infectious enthusiasm for the sights and sounds of a country holding on to its glorious past in the face of a violent future never wanes.”