''South from Granada: Seven Years in an Andalusian Village'' is an

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

book by

Gerald Brenan Edward FitzGerald "Gerald" Brenan, CBE, MC (7 April 1894 – 19 January 1987) was a British writer and hispanist who spent much of his life in Spain. Brenan is best known for '' The Spanish Labyrinth'', a historical work on the background t ...

, first published in 1957. Brenan, a fringe member of the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strac ...

, moved to Spain in 1919 and lived there on and off for the rest of his life. The book is an example of travel literature, mixing an autobiographical account of his life in

Yegen Yegen is a village of the municipality of Alpujarra de la Sierra in the province of Granada. The village was the home of the British writer Gerald Brenan in the 1920s, and he described its customs in ''South from Granada'', one of his best-know ...

, the village where he found his first home in Spain, with detailed background information about the

Alpujarras The Alpujarra (, Arabic: ''al-bussarat'') is a natural and historical region in Andalusia, Spain, on the south slopes of the Sierra Nevada and the adjacent valley. The average elevation is above sea level. It extends over two provinces, ...

region of

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

. He describes visits to his home by

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...

Lytton Strachey Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...

, and

Dora Carrington Dora de Houghton Carrington (29 March 1893 – 11 March 1932), known generally as Carrington, was an English painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, especially the writer Lytton ...

Film version

''South from Granada'' has been adapted into a film, ''

Al sur de Granada ''South from Granada'' ( es, Al sur de Granada, links=no) is a 2003 Spanish comedy film directed by Fernando Colomo which stars Matthew Goode as Gerald Brenan (author of ''South from Granada''), a demobilized British soldier who in 1919 rents a hou ...

'' (2003), directed by

Fernando Colomo Fernando Colomo Gómez (born 2 February 1946) is a Spanish film producer, screenwriter and film director. He has also acted in small roles in his own and other's films. He is regarded as the father of the so-called '' comedia madrileña''. Fil ...

. The film includes some biographical material not in the original book.

References

English non-fiction books 1957 non-fiction books British biographies Books about Spain Books about writers Hamish Hamilton books {{lit-bio-book-stub