Fiesta Bajo Las Bombas

In 1939, Elias Canetti went into exile in the United Kingdom with his wife Veza, both of Jewish origin, to escape the Nazi yoke. He lived there throughout the Second World War, both in London and in the countryside, where they were evacuated when the German bombings fell on the city. During these war years he met all kinds of characters, such as T. S. Eliot, Iris Murdoch, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Herbert Read, Veronica Wedgwood, Oskar Kokoschka and Bertrand Russell. With A Party Under the Bombs, Elias Canetti wanted to capture the image of his years in post-war London. Written in the 1990s, this book follows in the footsteps of his previous memoirs, The Saved Tongue, The Torch in the Ear and The Game of Eyes, and although the author died before he could publish it, his daughter took up its edition years later. Here we learn about Canetti's life in exile, through a particular and scathing portrait of London in the 1940s and its cultural environment, always from the perspective of someone who feels that he does not fit into the new society in which he lives. Intellectuals, writers, politicians, millionaires, ordinary people, friends and lovers make up in these pages a dazzling gallery of characters evoked through Canetti's incisive gaze.