Sarah Watling on Tomorrow Perhaps the Future: Solidarity and the Spanish Civil War

In the latest episode of the Hatchards podcast our guest was the historian Sarah Watling, author of Tomorrow Perhaps the Future, an enthralling group biography of a handful of female writers and rebels who aided the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s.

Nancy Cunard, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Martha Gellhorn, Gerda Taro and Josephine Herbst – among others – all felt compelled, to varying degrees, to aid the spirited but ultimately doomed defence against Franco’s fascist regime. But what was it about this particular conflict – more so than most others in history – that prompted such widespread and fierce solidarity from the outside? And what kind of legacy did the war leave on these women who travelled to a war zone and risked their lives for a cause they felt morally compelled to support?

We spoke to Sarah about the role of the writer in war; explored some of the fascinating personalities featured within her book – most notably the pioneering American journalist Martha Gellhorn; the Spanish Civil War in the popular imagination, and why it is so stubbornly synonymous with just a handful of famous men; parallels between the war in Spain and contemporary causes such as the Ukraine war and Black Lives Matter; and whether or not Nancy Cunard would be an entertaining or insufferable presence on Twitter.

Tomorrow Perhaps the Future was published by Vintage on February 9 and is available from Hatchards.co.uk as well as our shops on Piccadilly, at St. Pancras Station and in Cheltenham.