Our Lit History: Langston Hughes in Spain
Hughes not Hemingway
Usually, when people are asked to name a famous American author who wrote about Spain, particularly during the Spanish Civil War, Ernest Hemingway is the first person to spring to mind. Langston Hughes? Not so much. But he should be for so many reasons. Like Hemingway, Langston Hughes felt a deep connection with the Spanish people and covered the Spanish Civil War as a war correspondent. He also penned some of his most well-regarded journalism and poetry as a result of his time spent in Spain in 1937.
So, who was Langston Hughes?
Langston Hughes: Black American Writer
Langston Hughes was a versatile writer – he wrote news articles, poetry, novels, plays and social commentary- but was best known as a poet. Born in 1902, Hughes was a prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance and the majority of his work centered on the lives of Black people and the worlds they inhabited. A frequent traveler and social justice activist, Hughes went to cover the Spanish Civil War as a war correspondent. Globally, Spain’s Civil War was seen as the first major fight against fascism, and for Hughes and many other African Americans, fascism and racial oppression were considered synonymous.
Langston Hughes: Anti-fascist
Right before entering Spain, Hughes spoke at an international literature conference in Paris and explained the Black man’s interest in Spain’s war. He said, “Yes, we Negroes of America do not have to be told what fascism is in action. We know. Its theories of Nordic supremacy and economic suppression, have long been realities to us. And now we view it on a world scale.”
Hughes went on to describe Spain’s fascist leader, Francisco Franco, this way, ” Give Franco a hood, and he would become a member of the Ku Klux Klan.” In other words, Spain’s civil war had become personal to Hughes and to hundreds of Black Americans who traveled to Spain to volunteer to fight.
Langston Hughes’ Literary Life in Spain
Langston Hughes only spent six months in Spain, and yet those six months were some of the most pivotal in his career as a writer. Here are eight fascinating facts about Hughes’ literary life and work in Spain.
Langston Hughes learned Spanish after spending 15 months living in Mexico in his early twenties. He was in Mexico trying to forge a relationship with his biological father who had moved to Mexico shortly after Hughes’ birth. Apparently, the relationship did not flourish, but it was in Mexico where Hughes became fluent in Spanish and began his lifelong love of the Spanish language.
Because of his fluency in Spanish and his solid reputation as a writer, Hughes was hired by the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper to cover the Spanish Civil War. During the six months he was there, in addition to being a war correspondent, he also served as an interpreter between English-speaking volunteers and Spanish soldiers and local citizens.
Hughes spent most of his time during the war in Spain in Madrid, but he also visited and wrote about Barcelona and Valencia during his time in the Iberian Peninsula.
Biographers say that the six months that Hughes spent in Madrid, were some of his most prolific as a writer. It was in Spain that Hughes found his literary voice of social protest. In addition to the 22 news articles he wrote for the Baltimore Afro-American and other outlets, Hughes also wrote several poems about the war – Postcard from Spain being one of the most famous – mainly from the perspective of the African American volunteers he befriended. And as if that weren’t enough, it was at this time when Hughes began translating the work of famed Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, who had been assassinated by the fascists one year before Hughes arrived in Spain.
Langston Hughes was so dedicated to writing about the Black experience during the Spanish Civil War, that in addition to writing about the African Americans who had volunteered to fight in the International Brigades, Hughes also wrote about the Moroccan soldiers used as mercenaries in Franco’s army. Despite the fact that these “Moorish” armies were conscripted by the “enemy,” Hughes still felt compelled to tell their stories because he viewed them as members of the African Diaspora and their lives mattered.
Ernest Hemingway threw Langston Hughes a goodbye party on the day before Hughes was scheduled to return to the United States. Apparently, the two writers met while covering the war in Spain and hit it off!
Langston Hughes said that one of his most popular literary characters, Simple, was inspired by the Spanish folk hero, Don Quixote.
At the time of his death in 1967, Langston Hughes was known as the most important Negro poet in the twentieth century throughout Latin America and Spain.
Langston Hughes: Spanish Literary Hero
It is ironic that Hughes had more fame in the Spanish-speaking world, than in his own country, although he was well-known and well-regarded in the United States as well. In fact, Hughes was the first African-American writer who made a full-time living strictly from his poetry and prose. But as a writer who is obsessed with the Black experience in Spain, it is extremely gratifying to learn how much of an influence Spain had on Langston Hughes’ life, and likewise how much of an influence he had on Spain.