El Libro de Levante

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Azorín

Losada, Spain, 1952; originally published 1929

Nonfiction, General

Azorín was the pseudonym of Spanish journalist and novelist José Martínez Ruiz (1873–1967). El Libro de Levante (The Book of Levante) was originally published in 1929 under the title as Superrealismo.

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Diana Balmori

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The Spanish writer Azorín is the closest parallel to Tacitus (see my comments on Agricola and Germania by Tacitus) and is the reason El Libro de Levante, a collection of essays describing eastern Spain, became an equally golden standard for me. Azorín is a hero to me because, like Tacitus, he is terse, despite the fact that Spanish is a wordy language. He adopted the short essay form, which he delivered with great mastery. He is the 20th-century Spanish Joseph Addison or William Hazlitt.

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