Castresana, Luis de

b. 1925, San Salvador del Valle (Vizcaya); d. 1986, Spain

   Writer

   Writing in Spanish but on Basque topics, Castresana's reputation rests largely on El otro árbol de Guernica (The Other Tree of Guernica) (1967), winner of the Cervantes Prize for Literature. This is an autobiographical story of Basque children evacuated during the Spanish Civil War to France and Belgium, where they undergo hardships and internal dissensions but maintain some unity until the war ends and they return home. The novel embodies archetypes like the peace-maker and the traitor, echoes the myth of paradise lost and regained, and treats the recurring Castresana theme of the uprooted tree roaming the world as a ship's mast. The title refers to the age-old oak, or succession of oaks, marking the place where the overlords of Vizcaya traditionally swore to respect the people's rights and privileges. Following the book's success, the author published La verdad sobre "El otro árbol de Guernica" (The Truth About El otro árbol de Guernica) (1972), a personal reflection on its historical background and on the film which it inspired. Perhaps Castresana's finest work is Adiós (Goodbye) (1969), a view of life from beyond the grave, as a man who has just died approaches his final examination on the subject of love. Retrato de una bruja (Portrait of a Witch) (1970) attempts to capture the psychologies and sufferings that drove people to become, or resemble, witches. His last major novel, Montes de hierro (Mountains of Iron) (1982), describes youthful love in a Basque mining community where justice is swift and uncertain.

   Biographer of Dostoevsky, the bandit Candelas, Rasputin and José María Iparraguirre (1820–81), the Basque bertsolari, or bard, who composed the anthem "Gernika'ko arbola" (The Tree of Guernica), Castresana received the Royal Academy Fastenrath Award for his historical novel Catalina de Arauso, la monja alférez (Catherine of Arauso, Nun and Ensign) (1968), based on the life of the seventeenth-century Basque adventuress who left her convent to sail to the Indies disguised as a boy, later to become a soldier and officer.

   As a newspaper correspondent in London in the early 1960s, Castresana compiled Inglaterra vista por los españoles (England Seen by the Spaniards) (1965), a collection of texts written at various times, with a commentary of his own. Many of his stories, grounded in Basque legend, anecdote and myth, appeared in volumes such as El pueblo olvidado (The Forgotten Village) (1969). From 1972 onwards, he exhibited paintings of Basque landscapes and characters. One, Autobiografía del éxodo 1937-9 (Autobiography of Exodus 1937–9), shows drab emptiness with a child huddled under a solitary tree, implicitly a portrait of Castresana himself, close to the roots which he never abandoned.

   Further reading

   - Fentanes Ariño, J. (1972) El mundo vasco en la obra de Luis de Castresana, Bilbao: Gran Enciclopedia Vasca (a brief overview of Castresana's life and work).

   - Hickey, L. (1972) "Introduction" to El otro árbol de Guernica, London: Harrap (analyses this novel, with notes on other works).

   LEO HICKEY