Semprún's first book,
Le grand voyage (
The Long Voyage in English; republished as
The Cattle Truck in 2005 by
Serif), was published in 1963 by
Gallimard. It recounts Semprún's
deportation and incarceration in Buchenwald in fictionalized form. A feature of the novel, and with Semprún's work in general, is its fractured chronology. The work recounts his train journey and arrival at the concentration camp. During the long trip, the narrator provides the reader with flashbacks to his experiences in the French Resistance and flash-forwards to life in the camp and after liberation. The novel won two literary prizes, the
Prix Formentor and
Prix littéraire de la Résistance ("Literary Prize of the Resistance"). In 1977, his
Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez (
Autobiography of Federico Sánchez) won the
Premio Planeta, the most highly remunerated literary prize in Spain. In spite of the pseudonymous title, the work is Semprún's least fictionalized volume of autobiography, recounting his life as a member of the central committee of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), and his undercover activities in Spain between 1953 and 1964. The book shows a stark view of Communist organizations during the
Cold War, and presents a very critical portrait of leading figures of the PCE, including
Santiago Carrillo and
Dolores Ibárruri.
What a Beautiful Sunday (
Quel beau dimanche!), his novel of life in Buchenwald and after liberation was published by
Grasset in 1980. It purports to tell what it was like to live one day, hour by hour, in the concentration camp, but like Semprún's other novels, the narrator recounts events that precede and follow that day. In part, Semprún was inspired by
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the work contains criticism of
Stalinism as well as
fascism.
Literature or Life was published by Gallimard in 1994. The French title, ''L'Ecriture ou la vie'', might be better translated as "Writing or Life". Semprún explores themes related to deportation, but the focus is on living with the memory of the experience and how to write about it. Semprún revisits scenes from previous works and gives rationales for his literary choices. Semprún's essays and public lectures, published in Spanish in the collection
Pensar en Europa and, somewhat less comprehensively, In Franch in
Une Tombe au Creux des Nuages, include reflections on the legacy of Jewish Europeans, whether German-speaking such as Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, or Edmund Husserl, or French, such as Alfred Dreyfus or Léon Blum, as well as the political and social conflicts from World War II to the Cold War and beyond into the twenty-first century Semprún's plays are less well-known than his film scripts and prose works but offer noteworthy treatments of his key themes, such as Buchenwald and the Nazi legacy, Jewish lives in Europe before and after the Shoah, the persistence as well as perishability of memory. Of his plays, only
Le Retour de Carola Neher (The Return of Carola Neher) was published in his lifetime by Gallimard in 1998. It was commissioned by director
Klaus Michael Grüber and staged in German as
Bleiche Mutter, Zarte Schwester (Pale Mother, Gentle Sister), a title that alludes to two poems by
Bertolt Brecht, in the Soviet military graveyard near Buchenwald to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of the camp inmates in April 1995. Two other plays were published posthumously:
Moi, Eléanor, FIlle de Karl Marx, Juive (
I, Eleanor Marx, am Jewish) in 2014 by Gallimard, and
Gurs: une tragédie européene written in French but published in Spanish translation in
Teatro completo de Jorge Semprún in 2021. ;Books •
Grand voyage (Paris: Gallimard, 1963) •
Long voyage, translated by Richard Seaver (New York: Grove Press, 1964) •
Évanouissement (Paris: Gallimard, 1967) •
Deuxième mort de Ramón Mercader (Paris: Gallimard, 1969) •
Second death of Ramón Mercader, translated by Len Ortzen (New York: Grove Press, 1973) •
Segunda muerte de Ramón Mercader: novela, traducción por Carlos Pujol (Barcelona: Planeta, 1978) •
Repérages: Photographies de Alain Resnais, texte de Jorge Semprun (Paris: Chêne, 1974) •
Autobiografía de Federico Sánchez (Barcelona: Planeta, 1977) •
Autobiography of Federico Sanchez and the Communist underground in Spain, translated by Helen Lane (New York:
Karz Publishers, c1979) •
Desvanecimiento: novela (Barcelona: Planeta, 1979) •
Quel beau dimanche (Paris: B. Grasset, c1980) •
What a beautiful Sunday!, translated by Alan Sheridan (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c1982) •
Algarabie: roman (Paris: Fayard, c1981) •
Montand, la vie continue (Paris: Denoël J. Clims, c1983) •
Montagne blanche: roman (Paris: Gallimard, c1986) •
Netchaïev est de retour-- : roman (Paris: J.C. Lattès, c1987) •
Le Retour de Carola Neher (Paris: Gallimard, 1998) •
Pensar en Europa.
Ensayos. (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2006) • ''Une Tombe au Creux des Nuages: Essais sur L'Europe'' (Paris: Climats, 2010) •
Moi, Eléanor, Fille de Karl Marx, Juive (Paris: Gallimard, 2014) •
Teatro completo, Ed. Manuel Aznar Soler (Seville: Renacimiento, 2021) ;Screenplays •
Objectif 500 millions, by
Pierre Schoendoerffer, 1966 •
The war is over, by
Alain Resnais, 1966 •
Z, by
Costa-Gavras, 1969 •
The confession, by Costa-Gavras, 1970 •
The Assassination by
Yves Boisset, 1972 •
The two memoirs, script and direction, 1974 •
Stavisky, by Alain Resnais, 1974 •
Special Section, by Costa-Gavras, 1975 •
A Woman at Her Window, by
Pierre Granier-Deferre, 1976 •
Roads to the South, by
Joseph Losey, 1978 •
The Paths of Saturn, by Hugo Santiago. •
Netchaiev Has Returned, by Jacques Deray; adaptation of his novel by Dan Franck and Jacques Deray. •
K, by
Alexandre Arcady, 1997 ;Television screenplays •
The Disasters of War, by
Mario Camus, 1983 •
The Dreyfus Affair, by
Yves Boisset, 1995 ==See also==