Three Works, Three Lives
Thanks to three narratives of three very different kinds — a work of literary non-fiction, a documentary film, and an historical novel — I recently came in contact with three accomplished impostors from Catalonia. All three were born in Barcelona between 1912 and 1921, all fought — well, in one case, avoided fighting — on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, and all three became historical figures of the 20th Century — well, in one case, claimed to be such a figure — by means of stunning acts of trickery and deception.