The generation of Spanish artists known as the 98ers, who renounced politics and sought their country's true spirit within its landscape, culture, and character, are well represented here by thirteen stories by five outstanding authors. Four of the stories are by Miguel de Unamuno, the spiritual leader of the Generation of 1898. Among the other authors included here. Ramón del Valle-Inclán was a chief representative of modernismo fiction. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, one of the best-known of these writers (though not usually regarded as an authentic 98er), was a keen observer of peasant life. Pío Baroja, sometimes called the foremost Spanish novelist of the twentieth century, wrote a virile, unadorned prose whose style is reputed to have influenced Hemingway. And "Azorín" (José Martinez Ruiz), represented here with a short novel, has an impressionistic and elliptical style that has been described as a literary counterpart to abstract painting.

Contents:               

Introduction -- Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) -- Redondo, el contertulio/Redondo and his coffeehouse circle -- Mecanópolis/Mechanopolis -- El redondismo/Redondoism -- Don Bernardino y doña Etelvina/Don Bernardio and Doña Etelvia -- Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936) -- Beatriz/Beatriz -- Vicente Blasco Ibánez (1867-1928) -- Dimoni/Dimoni -- En el mar/At sea -- La pared/The wall -- Pío Baroja (1872-1928) -- Los panaderos/The bakers -- El trasgo/The goblin -- Nihil/Nihil -- La sima/The chasm -- "Azorín" (José Martínez Ruiz, 1873-1967) -- Don Juan/Don Juan.