Description
Secret Streets
Book Summary
This book is a unique work of literary journalism that immerses the reader in the underworld of interwar Europe. Pierre Mac Orlan, master of the genre he himself called "social fantasy," guides us through the most sordid streets, taverns, and brothels to portray the outcasts, apaches, and legionnaires who inhabited the fringes of society. An unpublished work in Spanish that combines the rigor of a chronicler with the eye of a writer, offering a fascinating and raw testimony of the 20th-century underworld.
What is it about?
Originally published in installments in 1934, Secret Streets collects Pierre Mac Orlan's chronicles of the darkest and most marginal environments of his time. The author, a true adventurer revered by figures such as Boris Vian and Raymond Queneau, deploys a clinical and literary style to describe the urban abysses he traversed in his youth. Through its pages, the reader encounters characters marked by scars, knife wounds, and lives of hardship: prostitutes, pimps, apache gangs, and legionnaires seeking a good death. It is an uncompromising social portrait, set in the turbulent interwar years, that functions as both a historical testimony and a work of literary art.
Main themes
- Marginality and the urban underworld in interwar Europe.
- "Social fantasy": a narrative style that fuses reportage with a unique literary atmosphere.
- The figure of the adventurer and the chronicler as a witness to an era in decline.
- Life in brothels, taverns, and hovels, and the code of honor of the outcasts.
Who is it recommended for?
This book is aimed at readers interested in the social history of the 20th century, travel literature with a dark and realistic gaze, and non-fiction chronicles with a strong literary component. It is also ideal for those who enjoy portraits of marginal characters and sordid atmospheres reminiscent of the best tradition of French urban reportage.
What this book offers
- A unique testimony, unpublished in Spanish, on the interwar underworld, narrated by one of the great chroniclers of the 20th century.
- An immersion into the "social fantasy" style, which combines the precision of reportage with the evocative power of literature.
- The opportunity to discover a cult author admired by writers such as Boris Vian, Blaise Cendrars, and Guy Debord.
- An unfiltered look at a social reality that rarely appears in conventional historical accounts.
Technical specifications
- Author: Pierre Mac Orlan
- Publisher: La Felguera Editores, S.L.
- Language: Spanish
- Subject: Biography and true stories, History, Travel literature
- Collection: Narratives of Disorder
- Binding: Paperback
- Publication date: June 2024
- Number of pages: 270
- Weight: 575 g
Editorial review
Secret Streets is a reference work for those seeking high-level literary journalism, far removed from official narratives. Pierre Mac Orlan does not merely document; he transforms the social chronicle into an artistic genre. The edition by La Felguera, within its Narratives of Disorder collection, recovers for the first time in Spanish a text that will interest both lovers of marginal history and those who value the prose of a writer who knew how to look the dregs of society in the eye without losing an ounce of his narrative talent. An essential book to complete the vision of interwar Europe from its darkest foundations.