Locos por la Costa Brava : Historias y retratos de un lugar irrepetible

What do a movie star, a jazz genius, a down-on-their-luck aristocratic couple, a painter in love with life, a Nazi spy (or perhaps several), a writer addicted to life and drink, a frustrated botanist, and the widow of a literary icon have in common? They all spent part or a good part of their lives on the Costa Brava, discovered it when almost no one could locate it on a map, and fell in love with this corner of the Iberian Peninsula. Some have left no trace but a vague memory or a forgotten grave, while others helped shape its current appearance, like Carl Faust in the Marimurtra Garden, the Woevodskys in Cap Roig, or Josep Ensesa in S'Agaró. And there are also stories of ordinary citizens who, in the worst of circumstances, gave a lesson in ethics and courage, like Nancy Johnstone, who arrived in Tossa de Mar to run a charming little hotel and ended up accompanying dozens of refugee children into exile at the end of the Spanish Civil War. His experiences, and those of many others, intertwine with the events of the turbulent 20th century, from the Russian Revolution to the Cold War, until Hollywood landed on its shores and covered everything with its dazzling layer of glamour. Drawing on period documents, news reports, photographs, articles, and biographies of those who made the Costa Brava a subject of literature or research, Francesc Ribes writes the definitive chapters on a territory, the idyllic Costa Brava, that captivated its first visitors and became an inseparable part of their lives, as had already happened to the most illustrious native of Empordà, the writer and journalist Josep Pla. The portraits of the protagonists and the splendid landscape—both past and present—reveal the enduring magnetism of that surprising, yet-to-be-discovered past.