Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente (vēthān`tā blä`skō ēbä`nyāth) 1867–1928, Spanish novelist and politician, b. Valencia. Outspoken against the monarchy, Blasco Ibáñez published a radical republican journal, El pueblo, and was imprisoned 30 times for political activism. His novels are primarily realistic in conception. The early ones, set in Valencia, include Flor de mayo (1895, tr. The Mayflower, 1921), La barraca [The Cabin] (1898), Cañas y barro (1902, tr. Reeds and Mud, 1928), and La catedral (1903, tr. The Shadow of the Cathedral, 1909). He traveled in South America, returning to Spain at the outbreak of World War I. He became a propagandist for the Allies, and his war novel, Los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis (1916, tr. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1918), made him world famous. He died a voluntary political exile.

Bibliography

See study by A. G. Day and E. C. Knowlton (1972).

Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente

(born Jan. 29, 1867, Valencia, Spain—died Jan. 28, 1928, Menton, France) Spanish writer and politician. An ardent republican, he was elected to the Cortes (parliament) but later settled on the French Riviera because of his opposition to the military dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. His early novels are primarily intense depictions of life in Valencia. He achieved world renown for his novels dealing with World War I, especially The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1916).