VICENTE SOTO: A SPANISH AUTHOR IN LONDON BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES AND EXHIBITION GUIDE BY VINCENT SOTO

VICENTE SOTO – BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

(Born February 1919, Valencia – Died

September 2011, Madrid)

Other than two years spent boarding at the

Roman Catholic ‘Escuelas Pías de Utiel’ (the

Piorists School of Utiel, province of Valencia)

Vicente Soto did his secondary school education

at the ‘Instituto Luis Vives de Valencia’,

completing it in 1936, just a few weeks before

the civil war broke out. At some point as a young

teenager and amongst rising political tensions in

Spain, Soto decided to join ‘F.U.E.’* – a student

organisation committed to anti-fascism and to

defending democracy and Republican values. In

addition he became part of the theatre group ‘El

Búho’**, known for its left-wing and liberal

stance on the arts. Literature on the history of ‘El

Búho’ confirms Vicente Soto’s involvement and

that he joined the troupe (like others) both as

actor and writer of brief ‘revolutionary’ and

‘experimental’ pieces which could then be

performed by the group at their chosen venues

away from the usual network of established

theatres. They were trying, in other words, to

reach beyond the bourgeois and educated

classes. It is not clear until when Soto managed

to remain part of ‘El Búho’ (which apparently

took its performances to the battle front).

Immersed in an environment of anti-fascist

fervour, Soto enlisted as a foot soldier in the

Republican army at the age of seventeen and

fought much of the Civil War on the Madrid

front.

Soto’s connection to ‘El Búho’ gives an

important glimpse of just how early his passion

for writing and the theatre began. After returning

to Valencia, he obtained his law degree at the

university (possibly between about 1940-44 –

although it is, as yet, unclear whether Soto began

his time at university just before he enlisted in

the army, or whether he had to wait until the war

ended). It was during his post-war time at

university, that Soto won the national award for

children’s theatre, the ‘Lope de Rueda’, with his

1942 play, Rosalinda. Having fought for the

Republicans, however, he found himself

constantly hounded by the authorities and (like

many of his friends) pulled in for questioning on

several occasions. Faced with this increasingly

dangerous environment, Soto wasted little time

in heading for the capital (probably in 1944) – a

city that had already won his heart and despite

being the seat of the new Fascist regime, would

prove a place where, at least in the short-term, he

could maintain a certain degree of anonymity.

At first relying on friends and

acquaintances for a roof over his head, Soto

eventually secured an office job in Madrid, in the

medical insurance company, ‘La Española’, and

it was here that he met his future wife, Blanca.

Perhaps as early as 1946, he joined a group of

left-wing writers and intellectuals who met

regularly at the central Madrid ‘Café Lisboa’ for

their ‘tertulias’ – calling themselves los

lisboetas. It was within this group that Vicente

Soto and Antonio Buero Vallejo first met (soon

after BV had been released from his seven-year

incarceration, as a political prisoner of Franco).

Professionally, creatively and emotionally, as

well as politically speaking, the two men were

immediately drawn to each other. As a struggling

playwright who had, like the others in the group,

‘lost the war’, BV turned to Vicente Soto for

help in presenting his play Historia de una

escalera (‘Story of a Staircase’) to the ‘Lope de

Vega’ national theatre award. Soto responded by

secretly typing out the play from BV’s

handwritten manuscript (on Soto’s office

typewriter, whilst BV sat by his side – a meeting

witnessed by his then-colleague Blanca, who

worked opposite him in the open-plan office).

The play went on to win the award in 1949 and

launched Buero Vallejo’s career. BV would later

dedicate his 1970 stage success El sueño de la

razón (‘The Sleep of Reason’), to Vicente Soto,

for his invaluable help in giving BV the initial

idea behind the play’s genesis. From their first

encounter at the Café Lisboa, a lifetime’s

friendship ensued (at times BV and VS were

more like brothers than friends) as nearly half a

century of correspondence and creative

exchanges between them attests to. This

correspondence is now celebrated in the recently

published book Cartas boca arriba,

Correspondencia 1954-2000 (compiled, edited

and prologued by Domingo Ródenas de Moya

for the Fundación Banco Santander, 2016).

A phrase which Vicente Soto often used to

explain why he (and others of similar political

persuasion and strong liberal convictions) felt

compelled to leave Spain was: “Podía haber

seguido viviendo en España a condición de no

poder vivir (“I could have continued to live in

Spain on condition that I not continue to live”).

Although he married Blanca and started a family

with her in Madrid, life in the capital proved

little better than in Valencia – lack of

opportunities and a stifling sense of oppression

continued. In the absence of any real freedom,

therefore, he felt forced into exile. After dallying

with the possibility of Paris for a while (where a

fellow lisboeta, José Corrales, had settled)

circumstances saw him leave for London in

August 1954 (ahead of his wife and daughter)

where he would soon make a life for himself and

his young family – and where he would forge his

life as a writer. Through his regular travels,

constant letter exchanges and, of course, the

Spanish language that he would explore through

his writings, Soto always maintained an

umbilical cord with his beloved motherland. But

this only drove into relief his existence as an

outsider. On his personal plight as an exile, he

felt somewhat trapped in a paradox, observing

that: “pierdes tu tierra, sin poder ganar la ajena”

(something like: “you lose your birth country,

but do not gain your adoptive one”). Vicente

Soto was thus forced to inhabit a kind of double

exteriority.

In London, he moved through a series of

jobs (some of them he held simultaneously)

These ranged from washing dishes at the

Majorca Restaurant (ending up as its secretary)

to freelance Spanish language teacher; working

for the COI (Central Office of Information);

theatre critic for the Spanish and Latin-American

BBC overseas service at Bush House; freelance

journalist for certain Spanish publications such

as the theatre journal ‘Primer Acto’; he was even

editor of an industrial machinery journal

(‘Industria Británica’ – part of Benn Bros. in

Fleet Street) and freelance translator of another

similar journal (‘Engineering Britain’); and for

several years worked as translator for various

UN organisations in London, ending up as the

chief translator of the Spanish section at the

UN’s International Maritime Organisation.

Soto dearly loved London and many

aspects of the British way of life, not least its

liberal politics, cosmopolitan nature and

enormously rich cultural life – London, for

instance, would always continue to feed his

passion for the theatre (witness his job at the

BBC, mentioned above). But Soto’s ‘añoranza’

(longing) for Spain was profound and

unremitting, and although he lived for the rest of

his life in the capital, he never felt completely

part of it – “Yo no vivo en Londres, vivo en una

casa de Londres” (“I do not live in London, I live

in a house in London”) he would say on

occasion. A life in London, on the other hand,

was a powerful catalyst for Soto’s writing –

something he always treasured – and it supplied

him with rich material for his narratives (such as

his collection of short stories, Casicuentos de

Londres, for which he won the award ‘Novelas y

Cuentos’ in 1973). Supported by his immediate

family, ultimately he took refuge in and strength

from his writing: ‘mi patria es mi trabajo’ could

have been his abiding sentiment (‘my country is

my work’).

* The ‘Federación Universitaria Escolar’ was an

anti-Franco, Spanish student organisation and a

national political force. It had pre-civil war

origins, but, not surprisingly, was declared

illegal by the Fascists after the civil war.

** Together with ‘El teatro del pueblo’ of

Alejandro Casona and ‘La Barraca’ of Federico

García Lorca’, ‘El Búho’ headed by Max Aub

was one of the three most prominent university

theatre groups of Spain’s Second Republic.

Apparently, ‘El Búho’ lasted from early 1934 to

late 1938. It was particularly associated with the

region and city of Valencia and like the other

two aforementioned university theatre groups,

took an unambiguously anti-fascist stance in its

non-elitist commitment, for instance, to bringing

high culture (such as Golden Age theatre) to the

neglected backwaters of Spain. El Búho’s clear

alignment to anti-fascist beliefs meant that it

could not continue beyond the civil war (with

perhaps its last performance occurring in 1938).

Vicente Soto won the ‘Premio Nadal’ in 1966

with his novel La zancada. In accordance with

tradition, the winning author was announced on

the last day of the year (whilst Vicente Soto was

at home in London) and the award was presented

in Madrid in early 1967.

The turning of 2016 into 2017 is thus the 50th

anniversary of Vicente Soto’s ‘Premio Nadal’.

Amongst his preferred authors of the modern era,

he would often cite Faulkner, Proust and Juan

Rulfo, along with Spanish writers such as Azorín

and Gabriel Miró (both of whom he is often

compared to).

Published literature of Vicente Soto:

THEATRE

CHILDREN’S THEATRE

Rosalinda (1942) [Premio Lope de Rueda]

Leonor (c.1943)

SHORT STORIES (collections and ‘stand-alone’

short narratives)

Vidas humildes, cuentos humildes (1948)------------collection

Los albaricoques. Ínsula. Nº 53, Mayo

1950---------‘stand-alone’

La prueba. Winner of the 1968 Premio

Gabriel Miró “

Concierto desesperado in La vuelta y 19

cuentos más

(finalist, Hucha de Oro, Madrid, 1973)-----

---------- “

Casicuentos de Londres (1973)-------------

------------collection

La bala in 12 Relatos (1974)----------------

-------------- ‘stand-alone’

Fa in El urogallo (1974)---------------------

-------------- “

Cardos para mi funeral. Ínsula. Nº 340

Marzo 1975-- “

El Girasol in El girasol y 19 cuentos más

(Winner, Hucha de Oro, Madrid, 1975)----

-------------- “

Cuentos del tiempo de nunca acabar (1977)---------- collection

Bajito + short autobiographical

introduction, in Un

Purgatorio (1984)-----------------------------

------------- ‘stand-alone’

La mano encontrada, in Antología del

cuento español

(1985)-------------------------------------------

------------- “

*La silueta en el suelo (1990)---------------

------------ “

*La final de Wimbledon (1990)------------

------------- “

*De caballos y hombres (1990)-------------

------------- “

*El prodigio de la Proffesora Winters

(1990)--------- “

*Fugitivos (1990)-----------------------------

------------- “

* All published as 'instantáneas'

from London in the Spanish

Newspaper, El Sol (1990-1992)

Pasos de nadie (1991)------------------------

------------collection

Cuentos de Aquí y de Allá (2000)----------

------------collection

Una hoja de otoño en el parabrisas (2002)----------‘stand-alone’

El retorno (2003)------------------------------

----------- “

NOVELS

La zancada (1966)

Bernard, uno que volaba (1972)

El gallo negro (1973)

Tres pesetas de historia (1983)

Una canción para un loco (1986)

Luna creciente, luna menguante (1993)

Mambrú no volverá (2001)

AWARDS

Lope de Rueda (1942, for ‘Rosalinda’)----

-----------------------------play

Nadal (1966, for ‘La zancada’)--------------

----------------------------novel

Gabriel Miró (1968, for 'La prueba')--------

---------------------------short story

Novelas y cuentos (1973, for ‘Casicuentos

de Londres’)-----------collection of short

stories

Hucha de Oro, finalist (1974, for

'Concierto desesperado')---------short story

Hucha de Oro, winner (1975, por 'El

Girasol')------------------------short story

Premio Internacional de Novela Plaza &

Janés,

finalist (1986, for ‘Una canción para un

loco’)------------------------novel

Premio de las Artes y las Ciencias de la

Comunidad Valenciana

(2001)-------------------------------------------

-----------------------‘Mambrú…’ +lifetime

award

Premio de la Crítica Valenciana (2002, por

‘Mambrú no volverá’)--novel

Premio Lluis Güarner (2002)----------------

-------------------lifetime achievement in

literature

A selection of other published material (non-

fiction) by Vicente Soto :

-----‘Un personaje en busca de obra’. Ínsula. Nº

260-261, Julio 1968.

-----‘Londres: El triunfo de Genet y Pinter’, in

Primer Acto. Nº 133 Junio 1971

-----‘Londres: Despues de la ira ¿la ira?’, in

Primer Acto. Nº 139 Diciembre 1971,

-----‘Londres: Teatro americano. Lo que va de

ayer (O’neill) a hoy (Albee)’, in Primer Acto.

Nº 142 Marzo 1972

-----‘Yerma ante la crítica’. Primer Acto. Nº 145

Junio 1972. 67-73.

-----‘Londres: De la “pornografía” a la

excepción’, in Primer Acto. Nº 151 Diciembre

1972

-----‘Teatro en Londres’. Ínsula. Nº 323, Octubre

1973.

-----‘El teatro de un año (1973)’. Ínsula. Nº 328

Marzo 1974.

-----‘No Man’s Land, de Harold Pinter, en el Old

Vic’. Ínsula. Nº 346 Septiembre 1975.

-----‘La doble historia del doctor Valmy, de

Buero Vallejo’. Primer Acto. Nº 107 Abril

1969. 61-62.

-----‘Las narraciones de Vicente Soto.

Intervención de Vicente Soto’. La novela

española

EXHIBITION GUIDE

Vicente Soto Collection – List of display items,

with some accompanying text

Although the items on display here at

King’s College London are just a small selection

of his oeuvre, they manage to represent, amongst

other things, the different literary genres that

Vicente Soto explored – namely the novel, the

short story and drama. Even the ‘art’ of letter

writing is here represented by the book Cartas

boca arriba – a written conversation extending

over nearly half a century, that both protagonists,

Vicente Soto and Antonio Buero Vallejo,

frequently turn into another literary genre.

Books Novels – La zancada (original hardback,

7th edition)- Premio Nadal, 1966

– Tres pesetas de historia (1st

edition, 1983) [Pease see below for

extra items and explanation

relating to the novel]

– Russian edition of Tres pesetas

de historia (1st edition, 1986;

edited by Natalia Matiash)

Short Story Collections – Vidas humildes,

cuentos humildes (1st edition,

1948)

– Casicuentos de

Londres (1st edition) -

Premio

Novelas y

Cuentos, 1973

Plays – Rosalinda typescript, foolscap,

c1942. (‘Premio Lope de Rueda’,

1942 – national drama award for

children’s theatre). On display is

the author’s personal working copy

with his own pencil notes,

additions and amendments

– Playbill for performance of

Rosalinda in Paterna, Valencia,

c1943

– unauthorised prose version

(greatly reduced and simplified,

post 1942) for ‘the younger

reader’ (Vicente Soto was never

actually aware of the existence of

this abbreviated version of

Rosalinda – the copy on display

was purchased by the family

after the writer’s death in 2011).

Both Rosalinda and Vidas

humildes, cuentos humildes were written

and published in the early phase of

Vicente Soto’s career, when he was still

living in Spain, before his self-exile to

London.

The first work that Soto published

was his play, Rosalinda. This won him the

‘Premio Lope de Rueda’ (a national award

for children’s theatre) in 1942, while he

was back in his home town, Valencia,

after the civil war and reading law at the

university. No published copy of the full

and original version of the play has yet

been found. It was first performed at the

‘Maria Guerrero’ theatre, Madrid (March

1943) and later at the ‘Apolo’ and

‘Alcázar’ theatres in Valencia.

It is in this early ‘Spanish’ phase

that Soto demonstrates strong inclinations

towards both narrative prose and the

theatre (an important strand of his work

that is frequently overlooked). Apart from

Rosalinda, and while still in his early

twenties, he was also to bring to the stage

Leonor (like Rosalinda, ostensibly for

children and adolescents and also

apparently inspired by the Spanish

‘romancero’ or Spanish ballad)1. Soto’s

love for drama would persist and these

two early plays were later accompanied by

other (as yet unpublished) plays that could

well have been written after his move to

London.

His early demonstration of story-

telling and narrative talents (the novel and

the short story would soon become his

preferred genres) emerged in one of his

first narrative ventures, Vidas humildes,

cuentos humildes (published in1948). The

appearance of this ‘librito’ (as Soto liked

1 This play was also staged at the Maria Guerrero theatre, Madrid, and under

the direction of the same Lope de Rueda theatrical ensemble that had staged

Rosalinda. Unfortunately, no copy of Leonor (published or otherwise) has

yet been found.

to call it) was very close in time to his

involvement with Antonio Buero Vallejo’s

Historia de una escalera (1949). That the

two writers were by now firm friends is

perhaps demonstrated by the fact that the

introduction to Vidas humildes was written

by Agustín del Campo, BV’s soon-to-be

brother-in-law and also a lisboeta.

Between the publications of Vidas

humildes (1948) and La zancada (1966 –

although Soto completed this novel in

October 1965) there is a hiatus of

seventeen or eighteen years when nothing

seems to have been published by him

(save, perhaps, Soto’s short story Los

albaricoques, published in 1950 in the

Journal ‘Insula’ and again in 1959 as part

of the Antología de cuentistas españoles

contemporáneos. 1939 – 1958, ed. by

Francisco García Pavón, who was also a

lisboeta). Editorial and publishing silence

did not, however, mean creative silence.

Far from it. It is during this period that

Soto and his family, uprooted themselves

from Spain, in order to make a new start in

England. At one point holding down three

jobs at once, it became increasingly

difficult for Soto to find time to write. But

family responsibilities only seemed to

strengthen his resolve to continue writing,

whenever and wherever he could.

Soto often referred to his journeys

in to work on the London underground or

tube as ‘el tunel del tiempo’ – a place

‘donde podía robar el tiempo’ (‘where I

could steal time’). And it was in this ‘time

tunnel’ that he developed his characteristic

multi-coloured shorthand on small,

pocket-sized, scraps of paper that he had

prepared earlier (examples of which are in

this small exhibit). Not only did this

abbreviated script maximise his precious

time on the tube, but (he later confessed)

its illegibility would also frustrate any

attempts at eavesdropping from prying

eyes (whether these be Spanish or not).

Much of La zancada, he often

insisted, was first written in this manner,

in ‘el tunel del tiempo’. More than simply

shorthand, this form of recording his

thoughts became, for Soto, an intimate

part of his creative process. His hunger to

create, meant that Soto often had several

irons in the fire and before even

embarking on the ‘zancada’ project (which

probably lasted several years), he was

continuing to write drama – as half a

dozen or so unpublished plays attest to

(carbon copies of which are held in the

Vicente Soto Collection in King’s

College). The suggestion that at least some

of these dramas are from Soto’s early

phase in London is perhaps strongly

supported by the fact that attached to one

of Antonio Buero Vallejo’s earliest letters

sent to Soto in London, is a newspaper

cutting publishing the rules and

regulations for the next ‘Lope de Vega’

drama award 2.

Buero Vallejo inscription – 2 copies of BV’s

play Un soñador para un pueblo

(1958). The

inscription reads: “A Vicente

Soto,

2 Copies of all the letters from the correspondence between Vicente Soto

and Antonio Buero Vallejo, form part of the Vicente Soto Collection and are

held in the King’s College archives.

viejo amigo de

todas las horas, con el abrazo

fraterno de Antonio

Buero Vallejo – Madrid,

Diciembre de

1959” [‘To Vicente Soto, old friend

for all hours, with

the brotherly embrace of

Antonio Buero

Vallejo – Madrid, December

1959’]. This play

was premiered in Madrid,

December 1958

and received two awards: the

Premio María

Rolland and the Premio Nacional de

Teatro.

As part of the correspondence between Soto and

Buero Vallejo, several books and articles, etc. by

the two writers were sent to each other – often

these books were in lieu of actual letters and the

vast majority carry dedications. Practically all of

the books by Buero Vallejo that have

inscriptions to Vicente Soto (well over thirty) are

in the Vicente Soto Collection3 along with others

that have not been dedicated but nonetheless

belonged to Soto.

Archive items – handwritten notes, showing

Soto’s characteristic use of

different coloured inks and also

his personal shorthand.

(paragraph taken from above text, under

‘Books’)

Vicente Soto often referred to his journeys in to

work on the London underground or tube as ‘el

tunel del tiempo’ – a place ‘donde podía robar el

tiempo’ (‘where I could steal time’). And it was

in this ‘time tunnel’ that he developed his

characteristic multi-coloured shorthand on small,

pocket-sized, scraps of paper that he had

prepared earlier (examples of which are in this

small exhibit). Not only did this abbreviated

script maximise his precious time on the tube,

but (he later confessed) its illegibility would also

frustrate any attempts at eavesdropping from

3 Two noteworthy examples are, for the time being, retained in the Soto

family archive. These are the 1st book dedicated to Soto – Historia de una

esclera – and BV’s 1970 play, El sueño de la razón, that is published in a

copy of the theatre journal ‘Primer Acto’.

prying eyes (whether these be Spanish or not).

Soto often kept handy scraps of paper in his top

shirt pocket along with a biro and a pair of

glasses, ready for immediate use. More than

simply shorthand, this form of recording his

thoughts became, for Soto, an intimate part of his

creative process.

– Two postcards from Natalia

Matiash (Moscow, 1987)

regarding Tres pesetas de

historia. Dr. Matiash edited the

Russian edition of this novel,

also displayed here, translated

several other works by Soto,

and would also feature his work

in her article, ‘España

posfranquista vista en el espejo de la

literatura’ [‘Post-Francoist

Spain as seen in the mirror of

literature’] in Ciencias

Sociales (Academia de Ciencias de la

URSS), no. 3 (73) 1988. This

journal is, at present, held in the

Soto family archive.

– Invitation and menu for

celebratory dinner following the

award of the Premio Nadal for

La Zancada, held in Valencia

in 1967.

Extra items relating to Tres pesetas de historia

Tres pesetas poster – this was a publicity poster

designed for the release of the novel in 1983.

From Tres pesetas de historia ‘parcel’: three

Republican one-peseta banknotes; handwritten

letter; UGTE lapel badge.

Sometime in 1980, Vicente and Blanca Soto

made a short trip to Madrid, where they visited

the well-known ‘Rastro’ antique market. Neither

Vicente nor Blanca were ever at all religious (far

from it). Yet they shared a love of art and their

life in London (with all its antique markets and

fairs, etc.) had fed their appetite (especially in

the case of Blanca) for ‘interesting objects’.

From one of the many stalls, Blanca purchased

three cheap and rather naïve religious prints (a

pieta, a Virgin and Child in Heaven and a saint –

unidentified – with the Christ child) that all sat

behind hand decorated glass. Upon their return to

London, Blanca took the pictures out of their

frames (all the same size and a little larger than

A3) in order to clean the glass and take a better

look at the prints that had passages of crudely

applied hand-colouring. Carefully lodged behind

the Virgin and Child print was a small bundle,

tied together with a length of black cotton thread.

After nervously untying this thread, secreted

inside the precious bundle she discovered the

items now on display:

Three Republican one-peseta banknotes; a

handwritten letter; a UGTE lapel badge.

The short letter reads:

Villacarrillo 15 de

Diciembre

Sra Dña Josefa

Villar

Muy Sra mia: Hoy mismo le remito un

giro de 12’50 pts. que pertenecian

a su marido q.e.p.d.

Eran trece pesetas pero menos 0’35

centimos de poner el giro y un sello que le

remito que con el importe del giro y esto

suma las 13’00 pts.

Saludos

[illegible

signature]

------------------------------

Villacarrillo 15th

December

Sra Dña Josefa

Villar

Dear Madam: I hereby enclose for you

today a money order of 12’50 pts. that

belonged to your husband r.i.p. [the

original initials are q.e.p.d. standing for

que en paz descanse – viz. ‘may he rest in

peace’]

There were thirteen pesetas but

minus 0’35 cents for placing the money

order and a stamp which I enclose which

with the cost of the money order and this

come to the 13’00 pts.

Regards

[illegible

signature]

It is apparent from this rather curt letter

with bad syntax that a woman has lost her

husband and that someone (maybe from the

authorities, but this would be a guess) is

returning his worldly goods to her. We do not

know the husband’s name, the circumstances of

his death, nor the year of the letter (although the

Republican currency left by the widow in the

package strongly suggests that it is either during

or just after the civil war, when this currency

obviously ceased). From the husband’s original

13’00 pesetas, and with cold efficiency, the

authorities(?) have deducted 0’50 cents, citing

the cost of postage and a money order. Of the

items sent to the widow, Doña Josefa Villar,

someone (perhaps herself, a sibling or a child)

presumably decided to form a small parcel

containing 3 Republican pesetas, the letter itself

and her husband’s ‘UGTE’ lapel badge4, as if to

encapsulate her husband’s life and (we assume)

4 ‘UGTE’ were the initials that originally stood for ‘Union General de

Trabajadores Españoles’ – i.e. the Spanish workers’ trade union. The union

had been founded in 1888 at the same time as PSOE (Partido Socialista de

Obreros Españoles) and by the same man, Pablo Iglesias. Franco’s victory in

1939 forced the trade union into exile and clandestine activity within Spain.

It was re-legalized in 1977, two years after Franco’s death. Over time, the

‘E’ was dropped from ‘UGTE’ (it is unclear at which point this occurred)

and the trade union became simply the ‘UGT’, i.e. ‘General Union of

Workers’).

the cause he died for. The widow’s impulse to

place the precious parcel in the bosom of a

religious figure, or its simulacrum gave the

parcel an almost reliquary status.

Beyond any emotive or artistic/religious

reason for placing the parcel behind the image of

a holy figure, the fact that the little bundle was

actually concealed at all, is of great historical

interest in itself. It was the parcel and its

contents, and the fact that they had been hidden,

that immediately caught the imagination of

Vicente Soto who had, of course, fought with the

Republicans against Franco and knew

instinctively that the Civil War lay at the heart of

whatever the parcel had to tell. In Soto’s

eventual novel, the narrator (‘Viz’) speculates

that the bundle was placed where it was in order

to hide it in a safe place: no-one would suspect a

framed religious print of harbouring subversive

(to the franquistas) material.

Crucially, the letter was headed by the

name of the widow and the village where she

then lived (Villacarrillo – a village in Jaén,

Andalusia). This was all that was needed for

Vicente and his wife Blanca to embark on a

summer of exploratory travels to Jaén and other

regions of Spain. The research they conducted –

consisting not only of taped interviews (these

tapes are, at present, in the Soto family archive)

but also of intense lived experiences that they

shared with the people they met and befriended5

– became the basis of the ‘semi-fictional’ novel6

upon which Vicente Soto would work for the

next few years, culminating in Tres pesetas de

historia (1983).

Further items on display:

Framed pencil sketch of Vicente Soto by

Enrique Buero Rodríguez (Antonio Buero

Vallejo’s youngest son), 1980.

5 At least on one occasion, Vicente and Blanca were present at the

exhumation of a Republican victim of Franco from an unmarked,

coffin-less grave in order to re-bury him in a properly identified and

consecrated plot.

6 Vicente Soto’s novel is in fact part of a tradition currently called

‘autofiction’ as Domingo Ródenas has pointed out on numerous occasions.

As in so much else in Vicente Soto’s oeuvre that is somehow ahead of its

time, Tres pesetas also precedes the emergence of ‘autofictional’ texts in Spain.

Just like his father, Quique (as he was

known to friends and family) was drawn

towards both the fine arts and the stage

(although here, more as actor than as

playwright). At the age of 25, he was

tragically killed in a car accident just

outside Madrid, on 7th June 1986.

The pencil drawing on display is of

Vicente Soto at a press conference in

Madrid (possibly at ‘El Ateneo de

Madrid’) and uses a technique that is not

all that dissimilar to many drawings made

by Antonio Buero Vallejo (who was

himself an academically trained artist

before deciding to concentrate on the

letters).

Forges cartoon, 1973

For many decades Antonio Fraguas has

played an integral part in Spanish

contemporary culture. Forges (his nom de

plume) is perhaps best known for his

humorous daily cartoons for El País that

usually have a sardonic edge to them. He

also writes, is a director of film and

television and has participated in several

Spanish radio productions.

It was back in the 1980s that Forges and

Vicente Soto first met in person at an

official gathering of artists and

intellectuals in Spain (very probably in

Madrid). There is a certain amount of

correspondence between them, of which

the ‘working drawing/cartoon’ seen here

on display, forms part. Forges sometimes

referred to Vicente Soto as ‘el poeta’ and

claims to have ‘un papelito’ (a small piece

of paper) with a poem by Soto.

VICENTE SOTO Exhibition– photos:

Photos in exhibition

– VS in garden (colour), c2004

-- VS writing at desk after receiving

Premio Nadal, 1967

-- VS in front of bookshop window,

Madrid, 1954 (see below)

-- VS outside the Cheshire Cheese pub,

Fleet Street, c1976

Vicente Soto at 35 years old, in May 1954 (not

long before his journey to London in August),

browsing in a bookshop window in central

Madrid. He must have visited this very bookshop

many times before, as it was in the same street

(calle Argensola) as his workplace, ‘La

Española’ (a medical insurance company) where

he met his wife Blanca and where he secretly

typed out the play Historia de una escalera

(1948) for Antonio Buero Vallejo.

As his journey into ‘the unknown’ loomed large

(viz. England, and all that this journey would

mean for him and his family) Vicente Soto sent

this photo of himself as a ‘keepsake’ to his

mother, Isabel, in Valencia; he inscribed the rear

of the photo, in the form of a little rhyming

couplet – “Para mi madre Isabel, de su hijo

Viquentel, 13.V.54” (“For my mother, Isabel,

from her son Viquentel, 13.V.54”).

Additional photos:

Vicente Soto and Antonio Buero Vallejo. This

humorous snapshot shows the two friends

fooling around at the fair – probably in the Casa

de Campo, Madrid, Spring/Summer 1951. Buero

Vallejo was by now a well-known playwright. A

few years previously, Soto had typed out BV’s

play, Historia de una escalera, enabling BV

(who never learnt how to type) to present the

play to the ‘Premio Lope de Vega’. The play

went on to win the award and was a big critical

and public success on stage, thus launching BV’s

career. The photo was taken shortly before the

marriage between Vicente and Blanca on 2nd

July, and at which Buero Vallejo would be the

so-called ‘testigo de boda’ (the nearest

equivalent in the British culture would be the

‘best man’) signing as the witness on the

marriage paperwork.

This very image has appeared in many of the

newspaper articles on the new book Cartas boca

arriba, (ed.) Domingo Ródenas de Moya

(Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid, 2016).

At the Soto ‘house’ (actually a small apartment

within a house, plus use of a back yard), Ciudad

Jardín, Madrid, August 1951, one month after

the marriage between Vicente and Blanca. From

left to right: Guzmán (photographer friend,

attached to ‘los lisboetas’* and who very likely

facilitated Vicente Soto’s first job in London, at

the ‘Majorca’ restaurant), Antonio Buero

Vallejo, Vicente Soto and Blanca Soto (née

García Iñiguez – holding on to the family dog,

Lobo – a vital character in Vicente Soto’s 1966

novel, La zancada, awarded the Premio Nadal).

The photograph was probably taken by Vicente’s

brother, Paco.

* After the Civil War, literati and intellectuals of

anti-Franco sentiment would gather at the Café

Lisboa and it was here where Vicente Soto and

Antonio Buero Vallejo first became acquainted

with one another. In this central Madrid café, just

off La Puerta del Sol, the left-wing writers, poets

and intellectuals chose to have their regular

tertulias. Calling themselves affectionately ‘los

lisboetas’, they used their regular social

gatherings to discuss everything from literature

to current affairs, as well as hosting regular

readings of their work, even organising literary

competitions.

Blanca Soto (née María Nieves García Iñiguez)

with Lobo.

This very image was used as the model/template

for the cover of Soto’s 1966 novel, La zancada

(in which Lobo is a key character) and the photo

was taken on the same occasion as the one

above.

The image shows VS flanked by two other

important figures of the literary world – the

academic Guillermo Diaz-Plaja (to VS’s right)

and the literary critic Dámaso Santos. The

occasion was the presentation of the ‘Premio

Novelas y Cuentos’ (1973) awarded to VS for

his short story collection, Casicuentos de

Londres.