"LIVING THIS TIME'S CRUELTY IS EVERYONE'S DUTY". FROM INTIMACY TO HISTORY, THE POET'S VOICE SHARED

In December 1958, Rafael Alberti received an anonymous letter sent from a prison in Spain. In June 1959 his answer "Carta a los presos de Espana" ("Letter to the Prisoners in Spain") was published. A reading of these two letters, exchanged when the poet was exiled in Argentina, reveal intentions that surpass the idea of intimacy expected of this genre. This paper aims to read these letters from a wider perspective, one that takes into account both the limits to the action of the poet and poetry and also, the historical context in the 50' s and the 60' s, a period in which we cannot ignore the role played by intellectuals confined in Spanish prisons, the movement for amnesty for political prisoners in Spain and Portugal and the ideological tensions resulting from the Cold War.