MAX AUB: BIOGRAPHY AND LITERARY WORK - LITERATURE - 2025

Max Aub Mohrenwitz (1903-1972) was a Spanish writer, playwright, novelist, poet, and critic. He was among the many intellectuals who had to live in exile for fear of reprisals from the dictator Francisco Franco, so he spent more time outside Spain than inside it.

Most of Aub's work was conceived in foreign lands. Her work in the world of literature was prolific. With regard to her poetic writings, these were at first within the aspects of Spanish modernism and French symbolism, and later became realistic.

Max Aub, mural at the Max Aub school in Valencia. Source: Joanbanjo, via Wikimedia Commons

The writer was also associated with the political cause. He identified with socialism and was a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party. In addition, he served as a diplomat, while writing articles for various Spanish newspapers.

Biography

Birth and family of Aub

Max was born on June 2, 1903 in Paris, France. He came from a family of good economic status. The writer's parents were Friedrich Aub, a merchant of German origin, and the French Susana Mohrenwitz. The poet had a younger sister named Magdalena.

Childhood and early formative years

The first eleven years of Max Aub's life were spent in Paris, with the mother always present, but in the absence of the father, who constantly traveled for work reasons. He grew up in a loving family, and received a very good education.

The first stage of school was studied at the Collège Rollin in Paris, with the advantage of knowing two languages: French and German; the latter learned it at home. In 1914 she moved with her family to Valencia, Spain, because with the start of the First World War her father could not continue on French soil because she was German.

Studies in Spain

He quickly learned Spanish, and began in 1918 to study at the Modern School, and then at the French Alliance. He attended high school at the Luis Vives Institute. Upon graduation, he made the decision not to pursue university studies because he preferred to work so as not to depend financially on his family.

Luis Vives Institute. Source: Joanbanjo, via Wikimedia Commons

Although Max Aub's family had a good income, he went to work as a jewelry salesman, a trade that allowed him to visit several cities. It was on one of those trips, in 1921, that he met the French writer Jules Romains, who greatly influenced his literary life.

Between Barcelona and Madrid

In 1922 Aub began to spend seasons in Barcelona, ​​and attended literary meetings or gatherings. A year later he visited Madrid for the first time, where he made contact with the poet and literary critic Enrique Diez Canedo, on the recommendation of Romains.

In the Spanish capital he began to attend the intellectual circles that took place in some cafes, and he also had the opportunity to read and recite poems at the athenaeum. In 1923 he obtained Spanish nationality, and also wrote his first play, Crime.

Max's marriage

In 1924 Max made a trip to Germany, and in that same year he wrote the works A Bottle and The Prodigious Mistrustful. He returned to Spain, and married his girlfriend, the teacher and dressmaker Perpetua Barjau Martín. The wedding was on November 3, 1926. Perpetua was their life partner and they had three daughters: María, Elena and Carmen.

Between literature and politics

Max Aub maintained a balance between commercial, literary and political activities. He became a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party in 1928, and also published the play Narciso. Later, in 1931, the incomplete Theater manuscript came to light, which contained five plays.

Aub had already established himself as a writer and poet by the 1930s. In 1932 Green Fable was printed, the following year he traveled to the Soviet Union in the company of some friends to go to a theater festival, then, in 1934, he published the book Luís Álvarez Petreña.

Activities during the Civil War

Aub was in Madrid when the war began in 1936, however, in Valencia, at that same time, he was director of the university theater group El Búho. In December of that year he was appointed delegate for the cultural expansion of Spain in Paris, and in 1937 he was secretary of the National Theater Council.

A difficult exile

In 1939 Max Aub left Spain for France to complete the filming of Sierra de Teruel, a film where he collaborated with the Frenchman André Malraux. Soon after, he was reunited with his wife and daughters, but in 1940 he was denounced as a communist, and he was arrested.

In May of that same year, he was taken to the Vernet Internment Camp, from where he was inspired to write the experiential work: Raven Manuscript, Jacobo's Story. Some time passed between arrests and releases, until, in 1942, he set sail for Mexico.

Life in mexico

Shortly after arriving in Mexico, he resumed his literary activity. In 1942 he published the works San Juan and Campo Cerrado. Three years later she made a trip to Cuba to wait for her family. Back in Aztec land he edited, in 1948, the magazine Sala de Espera.

Logo of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, where Aub was active. Source: Trademarked by PSOE. This file, by Rastrojo (D • ES), via Wikimedia Commons

In 1956 he was granted Mexican nationality and he was able to make several trips. Two years later he was reunited with his mother in France. Some time later, on August 23, 1969, she was able to enter Spain for the first time after exile; experience led him to write The Blind Chicken.

Death of Max

On his return to Mexico, he published La uña y otros narraciones, and was also appointed a radio and television guide at the Autonomous University of Mexico. In 1972 he visited Spain again, and that same year, on July 22, he died in Mexico City at the age of 69.

Literary work

Poetry

Brief description of the most representative autobiography

Blind man

In this work, the writer collected his experience after the visit he made to Spain after having lived for years in Mexican exile. In addition, he made a kind of reflection on what the country was like before Franco's dictatorship, and the expectations of what it should have become.

Fragment

"I'm not tired. We have been here for five hours from Barcelona. What will there be? Eighty or a hundred kilometers? For the stoppers of the superhighway only wide from time to time. Everything is a matter of time… Strange sensation of stepping on the land that one has invented for the first time or, rather: remade on paper… since there are paid vacations, he has held onto Europe… ”.

Other anthologies and stories by Max Aub

- The true story of the death of Francisco Franco and other stories (1979).

- Exemplary crimes (1991).

- January without a name. The complete stories of Magic Labyrinth (1994).

- Raven manuscript. Jacob's Story (1999).

- Certain tales (2004).

- They are not stories (2004).

- Stories I. Vanguard Fables and Certain Mexican Tales (2006).

- Stories II. Stories from The Magic Labyrinth (2006).

- The shoe shine of the Eternal Father and other true stories: the gaze of the witness narrator (2011).

References

1. Max Aub. (2019). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Max Aub. Biography. (2017). Spain: Instituto Cervantes. Recovered from: cervantes.es.
3. Tamaro, E. (2004-2019). Max Aub. (N / a): Biographies and Lives. Recovered from: biografiasyvidas.com.
4. Max Aub. (S. f.). Spain: Max Aub. Recovered from: maxaub.org.
5. Max Aub. (S. f.). (N / a): Lecturalia. Recovered from: lecturalia.com.