Understand the Weapon, Understand the Wound

Born in 1915 in Cambridge, England, Rupert John Cornford was a committed communist who fought in defence of Madrid during the Spanish Civil War and was killed in uncertain circumstances at Lopera, near Córdoba in 1936. Though his life was tragically brief, he documented his experiences of the conflict through poetry, letters to family and his lover, and political and critical prose which spoke out against the fascist regime and its ideologies. Edited by key US literary figure Jonathan Galassi, and with a new afterword, Cornford's eclectic writings are presented together in this compelling collection.