The exhibition

In 1963, at the age of forty, Jorge Semprún burst onto the French literary scene with his debut novel, Le grand voyage (The Long Voyage), recounting his experiences during his trip as a deportee to the Buchenwald concentration camp: memories he had long sought to bury in order to survive.

The novel was awarded the Prix Formentor, one of the major literary awards at the time. It was published in thirteen languages and boosted Semprún’s international career. The Franco regime was outraged by the award–given Jorge Semprún’s status as a Republican exile and an active communist leader–and launched a campaign to discredit him through the official press, censoring the book.

Le Grand Voyage was not published in Spain until 1976, a year after Franco’s death.

The foundational core of Jorge Semprún’s literary, political and intellectual identity lies in the events he lived through between 1936 and 1945. In less than ten years, while still very young, Semprún acquired the status of exile, resistance fighter, deportee, and survivor. All of these experiences and identities laid the foundations for his later literary works and shaped his thinking and political activity. But the most decisive was undoubtedly his experience as a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he encountered the worst version of humanity–absolute evil–and witnessed acts that would torment him “throughout the long years of memory”. But alongside the suffering, he also discovered solidarity and fellowship, “a necessity for the soul: a continent yet to be discovered, yet to be invented.” Buchenwald also reaffirmed his Europeanism and his intellectual and political commitment.

During his time as a clandestine member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Semprún used several identities. As such, he was simultaneously and consecutively Jacques Grador, Federico Artigas, Agustín Larrea, Rafael Bustamante, Camille Salagnac and Federico Sánchez. This multiplicity captures the essence of life in hiding during the years of Franco’s dictatorship. In order to activate resistance inside the country and avoid persecution, it was necessary to constantly be someone else and fan the flames of unrest. This underground resistance on the front line also gave Semprún access to information which, as time went by and given the lack of the expected results, led him to disagree with the opinions of the party leadership. Their differences increased, culminating in his expulsion during a summary session of which a compelling audio recording survives.

Rarely in the history of film has a screenwriter played such a decisive role as Jorge Semprún. Many of his screenplays capture the enduring power of film as a means of political intervention. He wrote La guerre est finie (The War is Over, 1966), for Alain Resnais with autobiographical references, and Stavisky (1974). His collaboration with filmmaker Costa-Gavras gave rise to three classics of political denunciation: Z (1969), L’aveu (The Confession, 1970), and Section spéciale (Special Section, 1975)

Jorge Semprún wrote screenplays for fifteen projects between 1966 and 1997. He received two Oscar nominations, for Best Original Screenplay for La guerre est finie and Best Adapted Screenplay for Z. There were many stories he wanted to tell through film, but not all of them came to fruition. His personal archive, held by the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques-Doucet in Paris, includes several unpublished screenplays.

The publication of Le gran voyage (1963) came at a time when Semprún was leaving behind his life as a communist party member and leader, and ushering in a new one as a writer at the peak of his powers. He continued to use French as the vehicular language of his works, and only wrote the original manuscript in Spanish on three occasions.

In 1994 he published his most acclaimed novel, L’écriture ou la vie (Writing or Life), an autobiographical essay speculating on the limits of narrative fiction and literary truth. According to Semprún, only artifice makes it possible for the reader to imagine the unspeakable.

Memory was the bedrock on which Semprún’s strong Europeanist convictions were based. He believed in a Europe based on a common desire to defend the values and principles of pluralism, secularism and democratic reason, “Europe will work when the dialectic between diversity and unity is found. When it can be just as important to write in Czech or Catalan, which are minority languages but have a history, a richness and a diversity that contribute as much to Europe as French and Spanish do.”

Jorge Semprún Maura died in Paris on 7 June 2011.

Organised bySalto de línea Ministerio de Cultura. Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural y Bellas ArtesSalto de línea Acción Cultural Española (AC/E)

CuratorSalto de línea Tània Balló Colell

Expert ConsultantSalto de línea Felipe Nieto

CoordinationSalto de línea Alma GuerraSalto de línea Mafalda RodríguezSalto de línea Alejandro Silva

Exhibition DesignSalto de línea Espai e

Graphic DesignSalto de línea Lali Almonacid i Marta Llinàs

Registration and ConservationSalto de línea Venue ACA: Joaquín García PorcarSalto de línea Venue CDMH: Alicia Marqueta, Noelia Vicente

Audio-Visual Production and CoordinationSalto de línea Sandra Ruesga

Camera and Image Post-ProductionSalto de línea Cristina Pérez

Installation (Venue ACA)Salto de línea Grop Esposiciones i Museografia

Transport and installation (Venue CDMH)Salto de línea Feltrero División Arte

InsuranceSalto de línea One Underwriting/Axa XL

TranslationsSalto de línea Nuria Rodríguez Riestra (From Spanish to English)Salto de línea Núria Farràs (Catalan: correction and translation)

© of the images:Salto de línea © Suzanne NagySalto de línea © Isolde OhlbaumSalto de línea © VEGAP. Madrid, 2024Salto de línea Salto de línea Photo CreditsSalto de línea Archive. Collège de FranceSalto de línea Archivo histórico del Partido Comunista de España (AHPCE)Salto de línea Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution, Bad ArolsenSalto de línea Biblioteca Universidad Las Palmas de Gran CanariaSalto de línea Cinémathèque françaiseSalto de línea Carlos FreireSalto de línea Família CadierSalto de línea Fundació Neus CatalàSalto de línea Hemeroteca ABCSalto de línea Hemeroteca Il MessaggeroSalto de línea Hemeroteca La VanguardiaSalto de línea Isolde OhlbaumSalto de línea Lee Miller Archives, Gran BretanyaSalto de línea Neue FilmKunst, Walter KirchnerSalto de línea Pablo LinésSalto de línea Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, BerlínSalto de línea Société des Amis du Centre d’ÉtudesSalto de línea SociologiquesSalto de línea Suzanne Nagy

Every effort has been made to identify the copyright owners.

Acknowledgements

This temporary exhibition has been made possible thanks to the work of all the teams from Ministry of Culture and Acción Cultural Española.

We would first of all like to express our sincere gratitude to Dominique Landman for his contribution to the project, and to the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, which holds the Semprún collection, for its generous work and loans. We also extend our thanks all the lenders without whose support this exhibition would not have been possible, and to all those who have contributed to the project.

Salto de línea LendersSalto de línea Archivo General de la Administración, MadridSalto de línea Archivo Histórico Nacional, MadridSalto de línea Archivo histórico del Partido Comunista de España (AHPCE)Salto de línea Biblioteca de CatalunyaSalto de línea Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, ParísSalto de línea Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica, SalamancaSalto de línea Cinémathèque française, ParísSalto de línea Col·lecció M. Dominique Landman, ParísSalto de línea Fundación Antonio MauraSalto de línea Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA), ParísSalto de línea Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (RTF)Salto de línea RTVE

Organisations and Individuals Who Have Contributed to the Project Salto de línea Jordi BallóSalto de línea Biblioteca Instituto Cervantes, ParísSalto de línea Odette CampilloSalto de línea Jordi CostaSalto de línea Philippe ChareyneSalto de línea Raúl DíezSalto de línea Editorial GallimardSalto de línea Filmoteca EspañolaSalto de línea GaumontSalto de línea Ángeles González SindeSalto de línea INA: Institut national de l’audiovisuel Institut Mémoires de l’éditionSalto de línea contemporaine, Abbaye d’ArdenneSalto de línea Archivo General del Ministerio del Interior Ministère des armées. Secrétariat general pour l’administration.Salto de línea Centre historique des archivesSalto de línea Paula MorenoSalto de línea Xavier PlaSalto de línea Bruno PodalydesSalto de línea Esteve RiambauSalto de línea Marina RubioSalto de línea Albert SoléSalto de línea Carlos Ubé