José Ferrándiz Lozano, Azorín, testigo parlamentario. Periodismo y política de 1902 a 1923. Madrid, Congreso de los Diputados, 2009, 570 págs.

Abstract

The careful study of Azorín's chronicles leads the author to question the widespread vision of a writer oblivious to the political fact and of a deputy who limits himself to observing in silence, an image that Martínez Ruiz himself wanted to promote, admitting only an openly political intention. in his praises of Antonio Maura and Juan de la Cierva. The myopia of this vision came from the fact that critics, biographers and historians consulted only a part of his journalistic work: the one that the writer included in his books. In order to assess the work of what has been considered the most important chronicler of Spanish political life in the first part of the 20th century, it was therefore essential to read all the articles published in the press by the writer. This was the task that Ferrándiz Lozano set himself in order to reconstruct from such a rich hemerographic corpus the «journalistic, testimonial and ideological vision of the author on Parliament» during the period studied.