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Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Yegen - a village with a literary past

by Robert Bovington

Yegen is a little village in the Alpujarra of Granada. Like other pueblos blancos in this region, it is situated amidst spectacular scenery lying as it does on the southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada.


a typical street in Yegen© Robert Bovington



Yegen was the setting for 'South from Granada' by the celebrated English author Gerald Brenan. He lived in the village between 1920 and 1930. A number of famous friends visited him there including Virginia Woolf.

Brenan was one of the foremost English chroniclers of Spain and its people. He wrote 'The Spanish Labyrinth' and 'The Face of Spain' but it was 'South from Granada' for which he is most famous. It was his autobiography of his time in Yegen.

There is a plaque over the door of the house where the author lived and one of the streets in the village is named after him. There is even a 'Sendero de Gerald Brenan' footpath - it is one of a number of walking routes in the vicinity of Yegen. The long distance GR7 passes nearby. It is part of the International E-4 footpath that runs all the way from Tarifa to Greece. So even without Gerald Brenan, Yegen can lay claim to being well and truly on the map!




 
more blogs by Robert Bovington... 

"Photographs of Spain"
"postcards from Spain"
"you couldn't make it up!"
"a grumpy old man in Spain"
"bits and bobs"
"Spanish Expressions"
"Spanish Art"
"Books About Spain"

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