WRITERS IN BARCELONA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sm,—I have received a letter from one of the most distinguished poets and literary critics in Barcelona, saying that he cannot get sufficient food to keep his children alive, and asking me to send as a personal gift a weekly package of bare necessities.
I find that several other Catalan writers are in the same difficulty.
As these friends are not provided for by the normal channels of relief, I think it would be a welcome gesture if a few writers and lovers of literature in England could send out as personal gifts occasional hampers of necessities.
I have already had promises of help from several well-known authors, and I have established the machinery for importing the food to Barcelona.
I should be most grateful for help from your readers. The group of whom I am speaking have devoted themselves to belles lettres rather than to any political field, and so, although they have remained in Barcelona out of a sense of loyalty to their country, they have experienced great mental loneliness at seeing their normal world destroyed. Hitherto political internationalism has shown more practical sympathy with Spain than international arts and letters. May I suggest that here is an opportunity for those whose political sympathies have not been touched by the plight of Spain ? Several of these writers are Catholics as well as loyalists.—Yours,
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