Chaves's father was himself a journalist, and he began working in the newspaper
El Liberal in
Seville whilst he was still very young. In 1922 he moved with his wife and daughter to
Madrid and there he worked for the
Heraldo de Madrid with other young promising journalists. In 1927 he won the most prestigious journalist prize in Spain, the
Mariano de Cavia, with a feature article on
Ruth Elder, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. Because he was enthusiastic about the future he embarked on many risky flights including an adventurous flight to the new
USSR, which gave him material for three new books:
Around the World in an Aircraft;
A Bourgeois in Red Russia and
A Bolshevik in Love. In 1931 he was appointed
editor in chief of the influential newspaper,
Ahora, ideologically supportive of the Republic and
Manuel Azaña. The following years he travelled extensively throughout Europe and the result was two more books on the Russian revolution:
What is Left of the Empire of Tzars, published in 1931, and
Juan Martinez, Who was There, published in 1934 which tells the story of a Spanish dancer who was caught in Russia during the 1917 revolution. In 1935 he published a book on bullfighting,
Juan Belmonte, matador de toros, su vida y sus hazañas, which was translated into English (as
Juan Belmonte, Killer of Bulls). It was also translated into French. When the
Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936 Chaves supported the cause of the Republic and stayed in Madrid, even though
Ahora was seized by a revolutionary committee; but when the republican government abandoned Madrid and fled to Valencia he, like many other Spanish intellectuals, felt forced to leave Spain, horrified by the
political repression practised by the advancing national army that were preparing Madrid besiege. In exile in Paris in 1936 he worked for
Cooperation Paris Service which sent articles to various South American newspapers. In Paris he also collaborated with the
L’Europe Nouvelle and Candide. In 1937 he published a new book,
A sangre y fuego. Héroes, Bestias y Mártires de España (
By Fire and Sword. Heroes, Beasts and Martyrs of Spain), considered one of the best books on the suffering of both sides of the civil war. In the prologue, Manuel Chaves writes that, "brutality and stupidity reigned in Spain, fed equally by the fever of communism and the blandness of fascism". Owing to his many articles denouncing the advance of German fascism, his name was included on the
Gestapo list and he was once again forced to abandon Paris when the German army approached the French capital, expressing his most profound disappointment and even outrage at the behaviour of French politicians on both the right and the left, and most of the Parisian populace. In 1940 he arrived in London and between 1941 and 1942 he directed
The Atlantic Pacific Press Agency, worked at the
Evening Standard where he had his own column, and collaborated with BBC Overseas Broadcasts. His wife and four children had returned to the south of Spain in 1940, fleeing from the German invasion of France and so Manuel Chaves Nogales lived on his own in London for four years whilst he continued his work as a journalist, fighting against extreme right and extreme left positions. He died in May 1944 of
peritonitis at the age of 46. He is buried in an unmarked grave at
North Sheen Cemetery in
Kew, London. ==Works==