As a young reporter in 1936, Muriel Rukeyser traveled to Barcelona to witness the first days of the Spanish Civil War. She turned this experience into an autobiographical novel so forward thinking for its time that it was never published. Recently discovered in her archive, this lyrical work charts her political and sexual awakening as she witnesses the popular front resistance to the fascist coup and falls in love with a German political exile who joins the first international brigade. Rukeyser's narrative is a modernist investigation into the psychology of violence, activism, and desire; a documentary text detailing the start of the war; and a testimony to those who fought and died for freedom and justice during the first major battle against European fascism.
"At first Savage Coast is a train-of-fools comedy; later, it's a cross-cultural love story Hemingway would have envied for its suddenness."
New York Times Book Review
"Rejected by her publisher in 1937, poet Rukeyser's newly discovered autobiographical novel is both an absorbing read and an important contribution to 20th-century history… Ironically, the factors that led to the novel's rejection-Rukeyser's avant-garde impressionistic prose style, alternating with realistic scenes of brutal death and a few descriptions of sexual congress-are what make the book ap
