Bearing Witness: Prison Stories from a Woman’s Fight Against Fascism

’Thanks to this superb translation, English-language readers finally have access to a classic work of prison literature that has played a major role in keeping alive the memory of the crimes of Franco’--Paul Preston, historian and author of Architects of Terror

’A humane, vivid and painfully honest testimony of incarceration under two fascist systems that flares up an urgent signal in our moment of clear and present danger’--Helen Graham, Professor Emeritus, Royal Holloway

This is the story of a woman who resisted two totalitarian regimes. Mercedes Núñez Targa was a Catalan socialist imprisoned under the Franco dictatorship. On her release, she joined the French Resistance and was subsequently arrested by the German Gestapo.

This is her story in her own words. Her vivid writings about her time in Ventas prison in Madrid reveal the contrast between the horrific conditions in the prison and the prisoners’ incredible spirit and endurance. Later, writing about her confinement in a Nazi concentration camp, she describes the violence of the SS guards and her comrades’ own pitiful conditions, showing how the appalling treatment only united the women further. This is the first time her story has been available in English, her words providing a unique opportunity to further understand female solidarity and resistance against the dreadful power of fascism.
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Mercedes Núñez Targa (1911-1986) was born in Barcelona. She became an active member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia from an early age. Her outrage at Franco’s military coup in 1936 galvanised her commitment to the fight against fascism. Arrested in 1939, she spent most of the next six years in fascist prisons in Spain and Nazi Germany. Freed at the end of the war, Núñez Targa continued to campaign against the Franco regime while in exile, and finally returned to Spain after Franco’s death. She died in Spain in 1986.

Mercedes Núñez Targa was born in Barcelona in 1911. Despite a middle-class upbringing, the turbulent social and political atmosphere of the 1920s and ’30s impacted her profoundly and she became an active member of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia from an early age. Working as secretary to poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda during his time as Chilean consul in Barcelona, her outrage at Franco’s military coup in 1936 galvanised her commitment to the fight against fascism. She was arrested in November 1939 and spent most of the next six years in fascist prisons, firstly in Spain, and then in Nazi Germany. Freed at the end of the war, Núñez Targa continued to campaign against the Franco regime while in exile in France. She was finally able to return to Spain after Franco’s death in 1975. She died in Spain in 1986.

Mirta Núñez Díaz-Balart is a historian of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime based at Universidad Complutense Madrid.

Pete Ayrton’s first job in publishing was as an editor with Pluto Press where he was responsible for Pluto Crime translations. In 1986, he founded Serpent’s Tail, an independent publisher with a commitment to publish innovative fiction in translation and first novels. In 2019, Pete Ayrton started Small Axes, an imprint of HopeRoad publishing.

Nick Caistor is a British translator from Spanish, French and Portuguese. With more than 90 books to his credit. He has three times won the annual Valle Inclan Spanish translation prize awarded by the Spanish government. Among his recent translation are works by Eduardo Mendoza (City of Wonders, 2022), Juan Marse, (The Snares of Memory 2021), Isabel Allende (A Long Petal of the Sea, 2020), Andres Neuman (Fracture, 2020). On the Spanish Civil War he worked on Granada TV’s series of interviews for the 50th anniversary in 1986, he has translated the novel by Dulce Chacon The Sleeping Voice about women prisoners jailed by the Franco regime and written and presented the BBC Radio 4 documentary (2006: Starr’s Spanish Heroes) with interviews of Republicans who joined the French Resistance.

Faye Williams is a Spanish to English translator, working on both fiction and non-fiction. Her translation experience includes crime fiction, science fiction and fantasy, multimodal texts, Children’s and Young Adult literature, and academic texts.