Baroja y Nessi, Pío

Baroja y Nessi, Pío (pē`ō bärō`hä ē nās`sē), 1879–1956, Spanish novelist from the Basque Provinces, member of the group of writers known as the Generation of '98. He left medicine to devote himself to literature and came to be the most popular Spanish novelist of the 20th cent. Of his several trilogies, the most widely read abroad concerns the underworld of Madrid—La lucha por la vida [the struggle for existence] (1904), comprising La busca (tr. The Quest, 1922), Mala hierba (tr. Weeds, 1923), and Aurora roja (tr. Red Dawn, 1924). The longest cycle (22 vol.) has a historical background and is known as Memórias de un hombre de acción [memoirs of a man of action]. Baroja's novels are forceful though loosely constructed, characterized by a spare yet lyrical style and an undercurrent of social discontent.

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Baroja y Nessi, Pío 

Born Dec. 28, 1872, in San Sebastián; died Oct. 30,1956, in Madrid. Spanish writer; representative of the so-called Generation of 1898.

Baroja wrote approximately 100 novels grouped in cycles. The trilogies written before World War I (Basque Country, 1900–09; The Life of Fantasy, 1901–06; The Struggle for Life, 1904; and others) sharply criticized bourgeois reality. Baroja’s novels, especially those of the later period (the cycles The Cities, 1920; The Agony of Our Time, 1926; Memoirs of a Man of Action, 1913—35; and others), are characterized by social pessimism. Baroja lived outside the country from 1936 to 1939. After his return to Spain, he joined the passive opposition to the Franco regime (see his memoirs From the Last Bend in the Road, vols. 1–7, 1944–49).

WORKS

Obras, vols. 1–69. Madrid, 1917–[36].
Obras completas, vols. 1–13. Madrid, 1946–47.
In Russian translation:
Sobr. soch., [vols. 1–2], Moscow, 1912.
Drevo poznaniia. St. Petersburg, 1912.
Sornaia trava. Moscow-Leningrad, 1927.
Alaia zaria. Moscow, 1964. [Introduction by Z. I. Plavskin.]

REFERENCES

Pérez Ferrero, M. Pío Baroja en su rincón. Santiago de Chile, 1940.
Azorin. Ante Baroja. Zaragoza, 1946.
Uribe Echevarria, J. Pio Baroja: técnica, estilo, personajes. Santiago de Chile, 1957.