The Interplay Between Fiction and Testimony: The Representation of Republican Exile in Britain in Esteban Salazar Chapela’s Perico en Londres

Abstract Esteban Salazar Chapela, an author exiled in Britain after the Spanish Civil War, wrote Perico en Londres as testimony for Republican exile in Britain. This article analyses Perico en Londres as an early example of autofiction, arguing that Salazar drew upon autobiography and fiction to create a space of co-existence that embraces the contradictions and ambiguity of exile. Blurring the line between fiction and autobiography allowed Salazar to express his feelings towards exile without complete exposure and promote the testimonial value of the narrative by giving a detailed yet fictionalized account of the intrahistoria of Republican exile in Britain.

Spain was bolstered by the newly acquired sense of freedom after the end of Franco's regime  and the need to express the experiences suffered during the dictatorship or in exile. From then to the present, the number of writers of autofiction and of literary critics that have tried to analyse the phenomenon have grown exponentially. Numerous scholars have attempted to trace its history and have provided different definitions such as 'auto(r)ficción', 'figuración del yo' and 'autobiographical fiction'. 4 Despite their diverse connotations, all share their perception of the genre as a hybrid between fiction and 'reality'. Following Manuel Alberca, this article understands the term 'autofiction' as: […] un original espacio autobiográfico y novelesco en el que se comprueba que los relatos que se acogen a esta posibilidad […] mezclan las fronteras entre lo real y lo inventado, demostrando la fácil permeabilidad creadora entre ambas. 5 This article will analyse Perico en Londres (1947) by Esteban Salazar Chapela  as an early example of autofiction to argue that Salazar drew upon autobiography and fiction to create a space of coexistence that embraces the contradictions and ambiguity of exile. 6 Blurring the line between fiction and autobiography allowed Salazar to express his feelings towards exile without complete exposure and promote the testimonial value of the narrative by giving a detailed yet fictionalized account of the intrahistoria of Republican exile in Britain. 7 contemporary history. 9 Perico en Londres focuses on the Republican exile, El milagro del Támesis, unpublished, reflects on the Francoist dictatorship and the return to Spain from exile and En aquella Valencia (1995) portrays the Spanish Civil War. Regarding his works focused on Britain, Salazar published Desnudo en Piccadilly (1959) and Después de la bomba (1966). 10 The former is mostly set in England and the latter in Trudgy, an imaginary island in the English channel. Both narratives also deal with universal themes such as personal identity and interpersonal relationships.
Perico en Londres was published by Losada in Buenos Aires after a lengthy publication process. It was republished in Spain for the first time in 2019, in an edition produced by Francisca Montiel Rayo. Perico en Londres narrates the intrahistoria of Spanish Republican exile in Britain between 1939 and 1943. In Salazar's words: 'El libro es el reflejo (pretende serlo, por lo menos) de nuestra emigración en Inglaterra'. 11 The narrative contains numerous Spanish and British characters who revolve around Perico, Salazar's alter ego. Moreover, Perico starts a research project on the history of Spanish exiles in Britain, fragments of which are included in Perico en Londres, adding another layer of narrative complexity. Perico en Londres is indeed a multilayered narrative where features from different genres co-exist: autobiography, testimony, fiction, theatre and non-fictional historical writing, among others. Being freed from the limitations of strict adherence to a genre helps Perico en Londres to provide a detailed, panoramic and open view of life in exile: an experience that is presented as simultaneously optimistic and hopeless, enriching and traumatic, full of opportunities yet also profoundly alienating. This space also favours the creation of collective memory by facilitating the expression of a version of history through the lens of exile. Thus, this text crosses the borders of both genres and nations and exists in a liminal state outside of traditional distinctions.
However, critics who have focused on Perico en Londres to date have tended to offer a superficial approach to the narrative. 12  ventured into more complex readings have not yet engaged in a critical analysis of the interplay between autobiography and fiction in the narrative. 13 Moreover, no critic thus far has provided a detailed analysis of the characters of Perico en Londres. 14 In this study, I seek to elucidate how the hybridity of Perico en Londres, specifically the interplay between autobiography and fiction, facilitated the author's depiction of exile as a complex and ambiguous experience as well as portraying it both from an individual and collective perspective. To do so, the analysis will focus on the creation of the characters and scenes through the fusion of fiction and reality. First, the problems of categorizing the genre of Perico en Londres will be explored to prove the importance of its generic hybridity and the relevance of studying this narrative through the lens of autofiction. Then, the study will focus on the use of fiction and autobiography in the creation of Perico and the Republican characters to portray a complex vision of their exilic experience from a personal and collective perspective. The last section will analyse how fiction and autobiography are employed differently in the depiction of British society to express the exiles' ambivalent attitude towards Great Britain and the European situation of the moment. This section will also help to challenge some fixed ideas and dichotomies common in studies on the Republican exile. 14 In Montiel Rayo's edition of Perico en Londres, she provides numerous footnotes to identify some of the real figures hidden behind the characters. However, there has not yet been any published study with a detailed analysis of the characters within the narrative. Similarly, Nora describes some of the characters in his own study, but does not provide a critical analysis.

Perico en Londres and Generic Hybridity
For Alberca, one of Doubrovsky's main achievements in coining the term 'autofiction' was that it allowed the retrospective identification of examples of this phenomenon that occurred prior to 1977. Before then, many of the works that would have been described as autofictions today went unnoticed or were described as either autobiographies or novels. 15 Perico en Londres was also a victim of this phenomenon. As will be explored, most of the scholars who attempted to define its genre had significant problems in doing so. Their inconsistency and ambivalence when referring to its genre will help to demonstrate how Perico en Londres could fit into the category of autofiction.
In her Introduction to Perico en Londres, Montiel Rayo asserts that the narrative undoubtedly constitutes a novel. While admitting that it combines reality and fiction as well as historical rigour and creative freedom (some key characteristics of autofictional writing), she considers that all novels do so to a certain extent. However, Montiel Rayo also claims that, with this book, Salazar aspired to write a 'crónica' about Republican exile in Britain. 16 Interestingly, 'crónica' means both: 'Narración histórica en que se sigue el orden consecutivo de los acontecimientos' and 'Artículo periodístico o información radiofónica o televisiva sobre temas de actualidad'. 17 While neither correspond to the traditional understanding of a novel, both non-fictional historical writing and reports of current affairs are crucial in Perico en Londres, as will be seen throughout this study. Moreover, Montiel Rayo had previously described Perico en Londres as a 'novela de la experiencia' that combines autobiographical elements, wellknown personalities, debates and reflections. 18 This term, which, for her, can be used to describe all Salazar's writings, refers to narratives that include the author's participation in historical events, features of his personality distributed among different characters and other people's attributes and experiences. 19 Once again, this definition resembles that of autofiction. Thus, as we can observe, the characteristics of Perico en Londres seen so far already present some problems for defining it as a novel.
Other academics have experienced similar issues when attempting to ascribe Perico en Londres to one genre. Marra López and Andrés Trapiello hesitate when considering Perico en Londres a novel but describe it as a Significantly, De Torre considers that the features that would usually be criticized after its publication and the difficulty of ascribing it into one genre represent the most relevant and innovative aspects of Perico en Londres. Moreover, even Salazar himself addressed some of these complexities in a 'Nota de la edición inglesa' included at the end of Perico en Londres: Aunque el carácter de esta novela me ha obligado en repetidas ocasiones a mencionar personalidades del día, ello no quiere decir que los personajes que actúan en ella sean personas vivas o aludan a personas vivas. Although the status of this declaration appears difficult to discern, given the fact that no English-language edition of Perico en Londres has ever been published, it could be argued that Salazar's words corroborate the view that his work sits squarely in the genre of fiction since, for Alberca, in the fictional pact, novelists erase themselves from the text, giving prominence to the narrator. 26 However, regardless of Salazar's intention, which was likely to circumvent any possible libel action, his note conveys the same confusion seen above, illustrating how the label of 'novel' falls short. Salazar's note provokes an immediate question: what is that 'carácter de esta novela' that has forced him to 'mencionar personalidades del día'? In other words, why does his narrative require the inclusion of reality? The answer could be found in the conception of Perico en Londres. As Montiel Rayo explains, Salazar had two projects which merged into this narrative: writing the history of Spanish exiles in Britain and creating a dictionary of Spanish personalities exiled throughout history, which are linked respectively to the two definitions of 'crónica' seen above. 27 The former project corresponds to Perico's book on the history of Spanish exile and constitutes the non-fictional historical subnarrative included in Perico en Londres which, due to space constraints, will not be analysed in detail in this article. The latter is achieved by the inclusion of numerous exiles in the narrative, although the scope is limited to the Republican exiles in Britain. These exiles are the 'personalidades del día' in Salazar's note, who appear as fictionalized characters in the narrative to increase its testimonial value. Consequently, the 'carácter de esta novela' refers to the generic hybridity of Perico en Londres, which employs fiction, testimony, autobiography and non-fictional historical writing to convey the Republican exiles' experiences in Britain. Furthermore, the ambiguity seen in Salazar's note when referring to the genre of Perico en Londres is also represented in the book, expressed by Perico himself. After finishing his book, Perico wonders: ¿No habría sido mejor, en vez de escribir esta obra histórica monumental, mirando al pasado, haber escrito solo la vida de los emigrados de hoy, mirando al futuro? […] no con el estilo expositivo histórico que él había utilizado, sino con el estilo vivo y nervioso de una crónica al día. Adding a playful note, Perico wonders: '¿Quién la escribiría?' (435). The description of this project, which would have been 'muy parecido a una novela', clearly matches Salazar's Perico en Londres. Thus, in Perico's opinion, Salazar's Perico en Londres resembles a novel but constitutes a 'crónica', which expresses anew the co-existence of several genres. This metaliterary game, along with that of Perico writing Salazar's former project and entitling it Perico en Londres brings Salazar's Perico en Londres close to being a 'metanovela' as defined by Gonzalo Sobejano. 28 For him, a 'metanovela': 'no refiere solo a un mundo representado, sino, en gran proporción o principalmente, a sí misma'. 29 This concept is also referred to as the 'self-conscious novel' by Robert Alter and 'metafiction' by Robert C. Spires and Patricia Waugh. 30 The latter describes it as 'a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality'. 31 These definitions are relevant not only for Perico en Londres' metafictional playfulness but also for its blurred boundaries between fiction and reality.
As we shall see throughout this article, Perico en Londres often refers to experiences that Salazar lived or witnessed, establishing a clear link between the narrative and reality. For Angel Loureiro, autobiographies constitute a performative act, a 'creation or re-creation of the self at the time of writing'. 32 With Perico en Londres, Salazar (re)created the collective memory of the exiled community, which also links to Eva Soler Sasera's idea of autobiographies as a 'deuda ética frente a la desmemoria' that promote a counter-discourse narrative against the Francoist legitimizing discourse. 33 Nevertheless, the work's focus on the past does not, as Ugarte claims about exile writing generally, reveal nostalgic prose. 34 Instead, Perico en Londres actively looks towards the future and its gaze towards the past is aimed at reconstructing the exiles' collective identity. Significantly, in this case, this reconstruction is facilitated by a layer of fiction. First, distancing the author and the narrator diminishes the protagonist's narrative weight and foregrounds the relevance of secondary characters. Second, it facilitates the creation of fictional characters who reflect the diversity within the group of Republican exiles in Britain. Third, Salazar can free himself from what Philippe Lejeune has defined as the 'autobiographical pact' and Loureiro as 'the ethical act', that is, the author's commitment to speaking the truth. 35 None the less, he does not completely embrace the fictional pact either, wherein the author completely erases himself from the narration. Instead, Perico en Londres responds to an ambiguous pact between both author and narrator, which, for Alberca, constitutes the base of autofiction.
A final relevant issue to consider when talking about autofiction is that, while Alberca's focus when describing autofictional narratives is on their ambiguous place between the autobiographical and fictional pacts, he also claims: 'una autoficción es una novela o un relato que se presenta como ficticio, cuyo narrador y protagonista tienen el mismo nombre que el autor'. 36 Thus, although Perico en Londres was presented as a novel, as seen in the 'Nota de la edición inglesa', and merges autobiography and fiction, the main feature that would distance this narrative from being considered as an autofiction is the difference in names between the author and the narrator/protagonist. Nevertheless, despite such a difference, the links between Esteban Salazar Chapela and Perico Mejía are clearly established in the narrative, as shall be seen in the following section. Furthermore, Salazar Chapela also used pseudonyms to hide his real name or identity in many other writing pieces. In fact, around the time of writing this narrative, he signed some of his articles as Antonio Mejía, a very similar name to that of the protagonist of Perico en Londres. Thus, although Perico en Londres does not completely fulfil this characteristic of the modern definition of autofiction, this article defends that it can be interpreted as an early example of autofiction due to the intentional merging of autobiography, testimony and fiction and the complex identification between author and protagonist.
Having explored the generic complexities of Perico en Londres and the relevance of analysing it as an early example of autofiction, the following two sections will focus on how Salazar drew upon both genres to create a panoramic representation of exile through the characterization of Republican exiles and British society, respectively.

Testimony and Fiction: Republican Exiles in Britain
When exploring above the problems faced by academics who tried to define the genre of Perico en Londres, it was demonstrated that some scholars who considered it a novel also referred to it as a testimony of Republican exile in Britain. As was seen, the ambivalence shown in the arbitrary use of both labels responds to the co-existence of fiction and testimony in Perico en Londres, which is especially visible in the representation of Republican exiles. Accordingly, this section will seek to prove the importance of the interplay between both genres to present a complex portrayal of the Republican exiles' experience in Britain. This relevance is seen in the creation of Perico and other Republican exiles as literary devices that allow the merging of different genres (testimony, autobiography, fiction and even references to the Bible) to convey the experience of exile in Britain from an individual and a collective perspective.
Consequently, when analysing the representation of the Republican exiles in Britain in Perico en Londres, the testimonial goal of the narrative becomes key. In fact, within autobiographical writing, this narrative is strongly linked to the genres of memoir and testimony. In this article, the term 'autobiography' is used with the broad meaning of writing about one's life. For Richard Woods, a memoir is limited to a specific period, which usually includes important years of the author's life such as their participation in a historical event. 37 This narrower scope is linked to the fact that exile is often perceived as a type of death. Life stops in exile and continues in a way that divides one's existence and allows reflection on the previous self, which is facilitated by autobiographical writing. 38 For Thomas Couser, testimonies are a type of memoir which are 'not distinguished so much by the relation between the narrating I and the narrated I as by the relation between the I and the world' and where 'the emphasis is on the I as an eye, a witness, of some injustice that the narrative seeks to put on record'. 39 Due to its goal of revealing the injustice witnessed, testimonial literature has been considered 'literatura de resistencia' that 'expone una problemática social específica, en muchos casos vinculada a luchas por la liberación nacional o al amplio tema de la marginalidad', which makes it a suitable means of expression for exiled writers. 40 In Perico en Londres, the testimonial value is enhanced using fiction, which is seen with the characterization of Republican exiles. A relevant 37 example is Perico himself. While he is frequently considered Salazar's alter ego, as was noted earlier, the importance of his ambiguous relationship with the author has largely been overlooked. 41 Meaning 'the other me' in Latin, the alter ego confirms the notion of the multiplicity of the Self through an entity that is 'me' and simultaneously 'the other'. Salazar grants Perico his own beliefs: Perico is a liberal and 'europeísta' who, as Montiel Rayo highlights, tries to reconcile his rejection towards any type of 'localismo' with his nostalgia for Spain. 42 Perico was an architect in Spain (which Salazar was not), but, uprooted in exile, he becomes a writer, like Salazar, illustrating the intrinsic link between exile and writing. Early in the narrative, Perico begins a research project on the history of Spanish exile intending to reconstruct his individual and collective identity and help other exiles do the same. Since Salazar had planned this project himself, he uses his alter ego to fulfil it by including sections of Perico's work in Perico en Londres. There are further disparities: Perico was born in Madrid instead of Málaga, and his family history differs from Salazar's. Other details could be autobiographical or not, which increases Perico's ambiguity. An example is Perico's love for Dora Alington, one of the British characters, and his subsequent disillusion when she marries someone else. 43 Significantly, Salazar explored the multiplicity and intangibility of human identity in Desnudo en Piccadilly, where the protagonist takes advantage of his complete physical transformation after being hit by a bomb to adopt a new identity. Another key aspect of Perico as a literary device is hinted at by his name. 'Perico', in Spanish, can mean 'anyone' as implied in several idioms: 'Perico de los palotes' or 'Perico entre ellas', which promotes him as a symbol for all exiles. 44 Meanwhile, his surname, 'Mejía' evokes the Latin form 'Messias' or 'Mesías' in Spanish. This aspect, relevant to the use of biblical language in Perico en Londres, which will be analysed more fully later, adds a connotation of leader or saviour to Perico's function in the community. Thus, the fictional layer promotes Perico's dimension as a representative of exile, which enhances the testimonial value of the narrative. Moreover, the interplay between fiction and autobiography allows the author to express himself without feeling completely exposed as would occur with a classic autobiography. Consequently, the autobiographical elements with which Salazar imbues his character allow him to write with the immediacy that comes from first-hand experience, while the fictional layer distances author from character. This distance prevents the narrative from becoming a personal account and leaves space for other perspectives and experiences. Thus, Perico functions as a literary device to merge autobiography, testimony, fiction and history as well as to portray exile from an individual and a collective perspective.
As occurs with Perico, other Republican characters are created through an interplay between fiction and testimony. The testimonial dimension is important in providing a wide range of experiences that Salazar would have witnessed or experienced himself. Their fictional dimension allows the narrative to provide more details and present complex and varied characters and experiences while it suspends any liability for accurately representing real people. Salazar also gives some of his life experiences to other characters. The speech on Spanish magazines by Bernardo, a malagueño like Salazar, at the University of Cambridge corresponds to that given by Salazar in 1942 and an article published in Asomante. 46 Like Salazar, Casto Palencia was hospitalized during the London Blitz. In a letter to a friend called Gustavo sent through De Torre, Salazar wrote: Te escribo estas líneas en la cama, convaleciente de una operación horripilante, en la cual me extrajeron hace ahora doce días tres pedruscos tremendos (uno de ellos tamaño de una nuez) del riñón derecho. He estado hasta anteayer en el hospital, es decir, en uno de los target predilectos de la aviación nazi. 47 Another case of this phenomenon is the character Paquita, who worked for the Republican Ministerio de Propaganda during the war and has two modules left in her history degree. As mentioned earlier, Salazar also worked for the Subsecretaria de Propaganda in 1937, which inspired him to write En aquella Valencia. Moreover, as Montiel Rayo highlights, Salazar Chapela, similar to Paquita, never finished the last two modules of his studies in History at the University of Barcelona (126, n. 94). The reader also witnesses the first appearance of the character Sebastián Escobedo, a lecturer from the University of Cambridge and founder of the Instituto Español, who will re-appear in subsequent narratives as Salazar's alter ego (in En aquella Valencia and Después de la bomba). These fragments of Salazar's identity distributed among different characters relate to the ideas expressed by Doubrovsky, who distinguished autofiction from autobiography as being formed from the fragmented pieces of an individual's existence. 48 Inserting recognizable autobiographical traits into different characters highlights the fragmented nature of the self, distancing Perico en Londres from a classic autobiography but also from plain fiction.
Montiel Rayo has also argued that Carlos Pérez and Casto Palencia, along with Perico, represent the three most common solutions to facing the traumas of exile: political action, individual salvation and intellectual activity respectively, which Salazar, like many exiles, experienced himself. 49 For their relevance in the narrative's merging of autobiography and fiction to express conflicting feelings towards exile, I propose to analyse each of them in turn drawing on Montiel Rayo's argument.
For Montiel Rayo, Carlos, 'el personaje más politizado', symbolizes ideological coherence and political activism as he encourages the exiles to organize themselves. 50 Initially, Carlos scrutinizes the exiles' actions and behaviour, concluding that 'no dejaban de ser para él los soldados de la República, […] por su desventura dispersos, pero sin duda prontos a congregarse y alinearse de nuevo en cuanto sonara el clarín' (194). Thus, to deal with the traumatic experience of banishment, he establishes a temporal line between those who fought in the conflict and the current exiles. He keeps searching for that 'clarín', in other words, how the exiles could continue fighting. After failing to create a magazine, he starts the construction of 'la casa', a place where all the Republican exiles could gather. 51 The trigger for this project is the arrival of the Republican Prime Minister Juan Negrín in London at the same time as the European leaders whose nations had been invaded by Nazi Germany during the Second World War. 52 This event makes the exiles hopeful of tying the Allies' cause to that of the Spanish Republicans and obtaining Allied support to restore democracy in Spain. 'La casa' shares its goal with Salazar's Instituto Español, whose mission has been characterized as: 'ayudar a la formación de los exiliados y transmitir una imagen cultural de España contrapuesta a la difundida por la dictadura franquista'. 53 At its inaugural ceremony, Carlos gives a speech to express the exiles' trauma, their disappointment with Allied Europe's passivity towards Spain, and their commitment to the Allies' cause, in return for which he demands freedom for Spain. Carlos' speech is regarded by the Republican exiles as 'el discurso que tenemos todos los emigrados en el cuerpo' (375), which emphasizes his role as representative for the exiles. However, in contrast to Carlos' fervent demands, the British guest's speech hints that Britain is not as committed to helping the Spaniards as Carlos requests: 'Su referencia chocante y contradictoria al Quijote, y sobre todo aquella vaguedad de "una España nueva", sin aludir para nada a los republicanos' (379). 54 Nevertheless, Carlos progresses from an initial pessimism to a hopeful stage when developing his project. Additionally, he slowly grows closer to Irene, which eases his discomfort in exile. In the end, despite his initial pessimism, Carlos exhibits the most significant evolution and most positive adaptation to exile thanks to personal happiness and involvement in a collective project. 55 Interestingly, Carlos' project mirrors Perico's book on the history of Spanish exiles. Perico, who relies on intellectual activity to cope with exile, conceives of his book as […] una casa […] donde cada una de sus espaciosas habitaciones (quiere decirse capítulos) alojaría a los emigrados de una centuria y donde el gran salón-un salón de típica construcción arquitectónica inglesa, con sus salientes y arqueadas bay windows-se animaría a diario con los emigrados de hoy. (144) Like exile, his book is a timeless space, significantly represented as an English house, that unites exiles from different centuries. The book, like England, witnesses the exiles' pilgrimage: '¿no era su obra una procesión, un desfile penitencial de españoles […]?' (153). This conception of exile as pilgrimage conditions the conception of Perico's book. In fact, when Perico has the revelation of creating it, he sees in the distance 'una zarza ardiendo' (144), which mirrors the burning bush that Moses saw when he was commanded by God to lead the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan (Exodus 3:1-4:17). 56 Significantly, the Spanish exile is described at the beginning as 'una huida sin tierra de promisión en el horizonte y sin Moisés' (70). Perico assumes the role of Messiah (as his surname indicates) by creating his book, which is described by other exiles in religious terms as 'la Biblia' (150) and 'una catedral' (350), following its conception as a building. However, while carrying out his research, he realizes the common nature of exile throughout Spanish history and becomes despondent about the future of the Republican exiles and their chances of returning to a democratic Spain. This change in Perico echoes Mari Paz Balibrea's analysis of Spanish intellectuals in exile. As she explains, the Spanish Civil War demonstrated the failure of the development of modern Spain in the 1920s and 1930s and the hegemony of a Krausist liberal vision of the intellectual as the elite that educates the people. With the Republican defeat, these intellectuals are separated from the beneficiaries of their efforts and lose their ties with any institutional power. This isolation is the reason why exile is so efficient at eliminating political opposition. 57 These aspects of exile become clear to Perico when learning about the history of exile in Spain: '¿Cuándo sus páginas sustanciosas circularían por la Península? […] obra tramada con la propia urdimbre de los sueños del emigrado, ella misma venía a ser por ahora un emigrado más' (435). He understands that literary works produced by exiles lack a public and thus are also exiled. 58 56 Montiel Rayo also points out this relation (144, n. 111). 57 Mari Paz Balibrea, 'Exilio y militancia', in Líneas de fuga: hacia otra historiografía cultural del exilio republicano español, ed. Mari Paz Balibrea (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2017), 54-58 (pp. 56-57).
The approach of the third character, Palencia, is based on individual salvation and a delusional love for Britain: Desde que abandonara el pico, requiriera la pluma y viera que sus artículos tenían salida, Palencia había caído (o elevado) en anglomanía. Vivir en Londres era para Palencia ser un afortunado inquilino del 'ombligo del mundo'. (199) Despite the mocking tone of this description, Palencia experiences much greater hardships than the other two. For Montiel Rayo, Palencia 'es un ser hasta cierto punto ridículo' and '[s]us efusiones líricas y su carácter enamoradizo contrastan con el prosaísmo de su vida'. 59 He struggles to make a living, he has a problematic relationship with his wife, and he is hospitalized during the London Blitz. Consequently, when his situation improves, he sees Britain as a paradise. The creation of the Information Centre allows him to quit a precarious job and write propaganda against Nazi Germany. For Balibrea, one of the most dispiriting episodes in the history of Spanish exile is the gradual disappearance of the Republican institutions due to internal conflicts and lack of support from other states. However, she highlights that in other lesser-known cases, exile favoured extranational activism in host countries. 60 When talking about this phenomenon, Olga Glondys refers specifically to Britain, where intellectuals such as Salazar Chapela, José Antonio Balbontín, Arturo Barea and Manuel Chaves Nogales worked for transatlantic presses and radio stations to spread anti-fascist propaganda. 61 This opportunity to work for the Allied cause favours Palencia's growing appreciation of Britain and his embracing of exile, which leads him to try to embody the British character through his appearance: 'Palencia, con una chaqueta a cuadros, con una pipa oliente y elogiando las informaciones del Times, resultaba más español que nunca' (200-01). Significantly, as Salazar portrays with his characteristic dry humour, Palencia's attempt to erase his Spanish identity not only fails but also makes him look more Spanish. wishes. 62 Thus, Salazar uses fiction to divide his life experiences into three characters and explore them individually, presenting common attitudes towards exile that would often co-exist in one individual. This feature recalls some of Federico García Lorca's theatre plays and his use of 'metaauthors' to project autobiographical elements and personal dilemmas he suffered as a homosexual artist in the Spain of his time. 63 The characters mentioned so far are some of the most relevant, but there are many more. Responding to Salazar's initial will to create a dictionary of Republican exiles, there are often clear equivalences between characters and exiles of that time. On other occasions, the characters are unrecognizable, being fully fictional or merging features from too many personalities to quantify. Excluding Perico, there is a correlation between the level of fiction in a character and their relevance to the narrative since fiction favours the characters' roundedness. For instance, Carlos, Palencia and Bernardo, who have not been identified with any exile of the time and are mostly fictional, are the most relevant characters along with Perico. As seen above, the lack of identification with real exiles is compensated for with features of Salazar's life. In contrast, there are other characters, such as Dávila, Ripoll and Pucurull, who are easily identified as Arturo Duperier, Jusep Trueta and Joan Mascaró respectively. 64 They do not develop psychologically, but evolve as a collective, embodying the gradual changes that illustrate their adaption to exile. At the end of the spectrum, there are exiles with recognizable names, but limited presence, such as Arturo Barrera (373) and Salvador de Urteaga (406) (Arturo Barea and Salvador de Madariaga respectively). These characters and the representation of their collective evolution favours the testimonial goal of the narrative. For Mabel Moraña, testimonies and novel-testimonies are narratives of resistance created by a witness who experienced the narrated facts. Their experience adds a dimension of credibility and authenticity to their work and increases the latter's value as informed critique. Furthermore, she distinguishes novel-testimonies for the higher complexity of their discourse, character configuration and structure, which results from their utilization of fiction. 65 As has been shown, the testimonial elements in Perico en Londres expose the sufferings, historical events and intrahistoria of the banished collective. The fictional additions facilitate the creation of rounded characters and invented situations which contribute towards the testimonial goal of the narrative. When describing the experiences of these autofictional characters, there is another layer of narrative, formed by its intertextual relation with the Bible, some examples of which have been given above. Despite permeating the narrative, the use of biblical language in Perico en Londres has gone unnoticed by previous researchers. The biblical language is first used to describe Bernardo and Irene's exile journey. Their journey is described as a 'peregrinación angustiosa hacia la frontera' (66), which begins with imagery related to hell and is concluded by the angelic salvation of a Scottish man named Mackay and their arrival in Britain depicted as heaven. This journey is divided into four 'etapas': Málaga, Valencia, Barcelona and France, as the different Stations of the Cross and finishes in England as their resurrection. Bernardo and Irene's Via Crucis starts in 1937, when the Francoist troops entered Málaga, Salazar's home town. After the invasion, thousands of civilians escaped the city through a coastal road that connected Málaga with Almería. At that point, the Nationalist forces and their fascist allies bombarded the road from sea and air in one of the cruellest events of the Spanish Civil War. Although Bernardo glosses over, in his account to Lady Alington, the scenes of horror caused by Fascist air and naval attacks, the narrator leaves the reader in no doubt: Bernardo no quiso aludir a los efectos de los bombardeos, a la carretera cubierta de despojos, ni mucho menos se atrevió a describir aquella bellísima hondonada, llena de fragantes y espinosas coscojas, donde, junto a los cuerpos despedazados de sus padres, aullaban, más que lloraban, varios niños. (67) The hellish imagery continues throughout the narrative when referring to fascism. For Moraña, an important aspect of testimonies is the will to supply documentary evidence to elucidate an event understood as 'ilustrativo'. 66 In this case, the Fascist attack is illustrative of the cruelty displayed by the Nationalist troops and their international allies. Thus, the creation of two fictitious characters allows Salazar to supply evidence of this episode, which he considered relevant in the war but had not witnessed himself. This attack receives detailed attention in En aquella Valencia, illustrating Salazar's extensive knowledge of the events. The same phenomenon is seen in the next stage of Bernardo and Irene's journey, which Salazar did not experience either. After fleeing Málaga, 66 Moraña, Momentos críticos, 93.
Bernardo and Irene's hopes were in 'La Francia eterna y hospitalaria' (67). However, France embodies Salazar's disappointment with Europe's inaction in Perico en Londres: the exiles present 'un resentimiento atroz contra Francia' (304) and the French 'campos de concentración' are frequently mentioned with horror (67, 78, 132, 170 & 304). Salazar expressed this feeling himself: Tengo el corazón lleno con la situación de tanto refugiado en Francia, muchos de los cuales tendrán que regresar a territorio facciosos [sic], seguros de recibir terribles penas, antes que sufrir la miseria a que los condena Francia-la Francia del Frente Popular. 67 Consequently, as seen with the attacks in Málaga, Salazar uses fiction to offer testimony of one of the most traumatic experiences lived by the Republican exiles. Furthermore, France's shabby treatment of the Republican exiles features prominently in further exilic writing such as Max Aub's Campo francés (1965), Arturo Barea's La llama (1951) and Jorge Semprún's Le Grand voyage (1963). 68 Contrasting with such infernal terminology, their arrival in England is described in language associated with deliverance: 'Aparición providencial de Mackay. Mackay con una espada de fuego (unos documentos), como un ángel. Mackay que los saca de aquel infierno y los introduce en el paraíso perdido de las personas' (67). The opposition between hell and heaven is represented by the Fascists bringing hell to earth and the Republicans performing a pilgrimage to a promised land. The description of Britain as 'el paraíso perdido de las personas' (68) contrasts with the image of London being bombarded by the Nazi warplanes as 'como debe de ser el infierno' (333). Therefore, the division between the languages of hell and heaven is also used to include the Axis in the former and the Allies in the latter. This division equates the Republicans with the Allies and Francoist Spain with Nazi Germany, which is key for the exiles' attempt to unite their cause to the Allies' and return democracy to Spain.
The biblical terminology is related to one of the exiles' main purposes in the narrative: to dismantle the negative image of Republicans spread by the Nationalists. The Nationalist uprising was infamously framed, almost from its inception, as a religious war: 'the Rebels claimed to be fighting a Christian Crusade against atheistic communism'. 69  observes, this discourse attempted to attract religious and conservative support in Spain and abroad. 70 By appropriating religious language to depict the exiles' journey, Perico en Londres utilizes and inverts the Nationalists' narrative and highlights the damage the Spanish Church had caused for centuries. 71 In fact, the history of exile researched by Perico is characterized by the systematic expulsion of intellectuals whose activity was considered suspicious by the Church. The juxtaposition of both chronologies, that is, the history of exile from Spain researched by Perico and the contemporary experience of the Republican exiles, illustrates that the latter is the latest in a long line of expulsions and suggests that the exiles were not the demonic figures depicted by Spain's Catholic Church. As the exiles settle into British life, they see the increasing need to contest anti-Republican propaganda. According to Carlos: '[n]os conviene muchísimo dar en este país la medida de lo que somos. Hay que deshacer la fama de salvajes que la propaganda fascista nos dio a los republicanos durante la guerra' (165). The first attempt to dismantle the prejudices towards the Republicans occurs at Lady Alington's tea party, where the exiles' intellectual nature becomes apparent. Other attempts will follow: Bernardo's talk in Cambridge, Manuel Filomeno's choir, the work for the Information Centre and Carlos' 'casa'. Most of these are based on real events, bearing testimony of the exiles' intellectual activity. Salazar gave Bernardo's speech, Manuel Filomeno is an allusion to Manuel Lazareno, founder and director of the choir of Juventud Española, the Information Centre was crucial for the exiles, and Carlos' 'casa' recalls the Hogar Español and the Instituto Español, wherein Salazar was a pivotal figure. 72 As has been seen, the fusion between fiction and testimony in the creation of Perico and the Republican characters allowed Salazar to offer testimony of the Republican exile in Britain from a personal and a collective perspective. On the one hand, the creation of Perico through fiction and autobiography allowed Salazar to express some personal experiences without having to completely expose himself. Perico's fictional elements also facilitated his role as a representative for all Republican exiles in Britain. On the other hand, the rounded and mostly fictional characters facilitate a detailed representation of the intrahistoria of the collective while the recognizable but flat characters add credibility to the narrative and enhance its testimonial value. In closing this section it is also key to consider that, while the characterization of Perico and the Republican exiles is crucial for achieving a complex representation of the exiles' experience, the depiction of the British characters also plays an essential role in Perico en Londres. As the next section will demonstrate, their characterization, which follows different mechanisms than that of the Republican characters, complements the depiction of exile by exploring the relationship between the exiles and their host country.

Great Britain and British Society
The distancing of Salazar from Perico, as explored above, allowed the author to create space for other experiences and characters, which enhanced the testimonial value of the narrative and promotes a panoramic view of the exilic experience. This space also facilitated the inclusion of British characters, which was crucial for the portrayal of another important dimension of the exiles' experience: their relationship with their host country. This article's analysis will now shift to explore how Salazar drew upon fiction and testimony to portray this relationship through the characterization of British society. To do so, this section will explore how the British characters are used to represent the Republican exiles' ambivalent feelings towards their host country and the perspectives on the Republican cause in Britain.
Due to the complexity of this narrative, the representation of the British characters reproduces both phenomena simultaneously. Most British characters can be divided into two groups: those who correspond to a living person of the time and those who seem entirely fictional. The former group add legitimacy to the narrative and reinforce its testimonial nature. The latter represent diverse sectors of British society but compromise the veracity of the narrative. As will be seen, both support the expression of the exiles' experience and their attitude towards Britain. On the one hand, the real characters are 'los numerosos amigos de España' (93). Their names remain unchanged, preventing their anonymity, such as Isabel Brown, leader of the Communist Party, and Professor Trend from Cambridge, both firm supporters of the Republic. None the less, the disclosure of their identities is balanced with their brief appearances: the former presents a documentary about the Spanish Civil War in Glasgow and the latter hosts Bernardo's talk. Other characters are only mentioned in passing such as Lady Atholl, Sir Daniel Stevenson, the Dean of Canterbury and Professor Murray from Oxford (93). These characters show the influential personalities who supported the Republic, strengthening its image. 74 On the other hand, the fictional British characters are flat and barely evolve. Their role is almost emblematic as most symbolize certain sectors of British society. For instance, Mackay, who assists the Republican exiles, represents Scotland's aid to the Republic. 75 He is depicted as a Scottish man who saves Republican exiles in France, 'un ángel […] que los saca de aquel infierno y los introduce en el paraíso perdido de las personas' (67). The image of Mackay as saviour continues during the exiles' stay in Britain and he is referred to as 'un santo' (43) when he financially assists Palencia. Another example is Dora's family: John, Dora's brother, personifies intellectual and political action (as a poet and member of numerous political associations), Dora embodies humanitarian action (as a volunteer for the Spanish Relief and the Committee for Help to Spain) and her parents, Sir Percy and Lady Alington (who proudly considers herself 'muy within British society, depicted in a discussion between Mackay and Sir Percy. For Sir Percy, who supports Franco, Germany is not the main concern, but Russia. He claims that Fascism is only 'un cinturón, un fuerte braguero aplicado a países que se les estaban saliendo las tripas sociales … ' which benefits Britain (77). Mackay, who defends the Republic, considers that Spain had to resort to Russia because Europe had abandoned it, which meant 'un atropello y una equivocación' (76) and resulted in Britain being directionless and destined for war. 76 Significantly, the narrative shows how Britain eventually allies with the Soviet Union, which makes Carlos claim: 'La historia, querido Palencia, nos da la razón' (367), expressing the circular nature of history. Mackay and Percy's discussion is based on opposing attitudes towards contemporary British foreign policy: the appeasement strategy, based on making concessions to the fascist regimes to avoid conflict, and those advocating a more robust response to Hitler's manifest aggression. 77 Despite the differences in society, which recall pre-war Spain, the conclusion of the discussion illustrates that the divisions are still solvable: 'El silencio de dos personas de pareceres y razones distintos, en posiciones y con armamentos distintos, pero que no desean discutir, que no quieren luchar' (79). In fact, the British unity awakens the exiles' admiration (200).
Additionally, the British fictional characters are used to portray how the information received in Britain about Spain was confusing and propagandistic. This issue is illustrated when Lady Alington struggles to distinguish between the 'Spanish tories' and the 'Spanish whigs' when reading the press. 78 Another instance is the propagandistic documentary presented by the leader of the Communist Party in Glasgow. Dora and Lady Alington attend the screening while seeking refuge from a 'diluvio' from which they are saved by 'el arca de un automóvil' (99), which again utilizes biblical terminology. Representing the divisions in society, the public, including Dora, is deeply moved, while Lady Alington is horrified and considers that: 'para criticar al Gobierno y recabar unas cuantas libras no era indispensable echar mano del Apocalipsis' (102). Significantly, her use of biblical terminology dismisses the exiles' dichotomy between heaven and hell studied above. In fact, she associates heaven with Chamberlain, responsible for the appeasement strategy, and considers him an 'ángel bondadoso' (104). None the less, she changes her mind when she meets Bernardo and Irene: […] cuando lady Alington vio a don Bernardo e Irene-una pareja roja-, su sistema filosófico quedó socavado por su base. La teoría no convenía con la realidad. El infierno imaginado no era ni siquiera purgatorio, sino sociabilidad verdadera. (106) The biblical terminology enforces a satirical note about class prejudices: whereas the documentary exposes experiences like those lived by Bernardo and Irene, Lady Alington reacts badly to the former for its sensationalism and for being presented by a woman. In contrast, Bernardo and Irene represent an acceptable face of exile: liberal verging on conservative, wealthy and well-presented, which pleases Lady Alington's sense of tradition. Lady Alington's development illustrates the British ignorance about the Spanish conflict and relates to the exiles' will to dismantle Francoist propaganda.
Furthermore, the characterization of British society helps to express the exiles' mixed feelings towards Britain, which exhibits a complex view of exile that dismantles Claudio Guillén's famous dichotomy between 'exilio' (feelings of loneliness and estrangement) and 'contraexilio' (feelings of universal solidarity). 79 According to Edward Said, '[f]or an exile, habits of life, expression or activity in the new environment inevitably occur against the memory of these things in another environment', a phenomenon he calls 'contrapuntal vision'. 80 This contrapuntal vision can be seen in Perico en Londres as the perception of Britain is filtered through a sentiment of ambivalence brought about by the exiles' attachment to Spain's past and present. On the one hand, thanks to the British individuals who assist the Republicans, the exiles perceive Britain as a welcoming space. Alongside Palencia's devotion to Britain, Bernardo describes his arrival in England in the following terms: 'En cuanto se entra aquí, este país da una sensación tan fuerte de seguridad que nadie puede imaginar que le pueda pasar nada malo, [ difficulties, their situation in Britain is perceived as privileged, acknowledging the harshness experienced by those who stayed in Spain and the freedom provided by exile. On the other hand, as seen in the words: 'Casi costaba trabajo creer, al ver a Dora en las tablas, siempre tan encantadora y tan bien vestida, que la República estuviera sola del todo … ' (94), the exiles feel ambivalent towards Britain. The disparity between British society and the government is presented through discussions about the appeasement policy and the Non-Intervention Agreement, as discussed above. 81 The European passivity shown by the Non-Intervention Agreement is perceived by the exiles as decisive in Franco's victory, which makes its signatories equally guilty for Spain's fate (149-50). 82 Additionally, the characters' struggles are perceived through the filter of the homeland, reinforcing Said's notion of contrapuntal vision. There are references to their difficulties with the language, their poor working conditions (two characters who were a lawyer and a university professor in Spain are working digging ditches in Oxford) and their economic problems (Palencia cannot afford hospital bills), which increase their alienation. Consequently, the exiles' contrapuntal vision and perception of their situation in Britain defies extremes and presents an ambiguous and complex response. This depiction of exile could not be defined in terms of either 'exile' or 'counter-exile' as Guillén suggested but entails the coexistence of feelings related to both.
These exiles' perceptions of Britain and its society also dismantle another common idea around exile: the exiles' obsession with the past, either as a burden to dwell in the present or a spur to look towards the future. Sebastiaan Faber argues that, '[d]enied the right to participate further in the history of his or her community, the exile starts living in and off memory', and therefore 'the exile ceases to live in the present'. 83 Balibrea, while recognizing the exiles' problematic relationship with the past, offers a more complex approach: Para muchos exiliados que quieren continuar vinculados a España, la vuelta al pasado se percibe como la única manera de avanzar hacia el futuro. Su concepción del tiempo en el exilio es por ello circular uniendo pasado con el futuro del retorno, en el que podrán volver a ser modernos/ españoles. 84 Thus, their vision is more dynamic and interconnected to other temporalities than pure nostalgia would imply, which helps to understand the exiles' relationship with their past, present and future in Perico en Londres. While the characters also look to the past, they are mostly concerned with their present and future. For instance, Palencia resorts to Spanish history to find an answer to when Franco's dictatorship will end, illustrating a circular conception of time: 'Seis años, siete años a lo sumo. Es lo más que suele durar una situación de violencia en España. Véanlo ustedes por estas cifras de absolutismo: de 1814 a 1820, de 1823 a 1833, de 1923 a 1931' (121-22). Most exiles are certain that their future is in Europe's hands: […] la situación española estaba engastada […] en la situación europea. Si había guerra, el régimen español perecería, se vendría abajo enseguida; si no había guerra, aquello podría durar más de siete años, 'más que nosotros'. (124) 85 Thus, highlighting the significance of the Republican cause becomes their priority. Demystifying the exiles' obsession with the past, the characters become absorbed in linking past and present to rebuild their stolen future. One of the most significant ways of doing this is, as seen in multiple instances, by inscribing the Spanish conflict onto the wider international issue of the Second World War.
As has been seen, the balance between fictional and testimonial elements in the depiction of British characters is different to that shown above in Republican characters. Both the inclusion of real British people and the creation of fictional British characters facilitate the representation of how the exiles felt towards Britain and vice versa. By portraying how the Republicans simultaneously experienced the warmth of British society and the government's passivity, this depiction facilitates the expression of a multifaceted understanding of the Republican exile in Britain as both traumatic and fulfilling, despairing and fortunate, full of new opportunities and alienating. Significantly, despite being published in 1947, after the outcome of the war, Perico en Londres finishes just before the end of the conflict and thus the exiles' expectations for their future remain unfulfilled. This open ending, however, is different from those found in purely fictional narratives. Due to the fusion between fiction and testimony, the reader remains unaware of the details of the characters' fate but comprehends that the exiles' hopes in the Allies were in vain, accentuating the tragic nature of the Republican diaspora.
It therefore seems clear that Esteban Salazar Chapela found in generic hybridity an ideal space to express the ambiguity, devastation, joy and trauma of exile. The interplay between autobiography and fiction has been explored to show how it provided the author with the ability to express himself without complete self-exposure and give a detailed testimony of the intrahistoria of the Republican exiles in Britain. The combination of these layers characterizes the narrative as an early example of autofiction where autofiction and exile are indispensable to each other. As has been shown, the effects of this combination between autobiography and fiction are especially fruitful in the construction of Perico, the Republican characters and British society. Perico allowed Salazar to (re)create his identity through writing while still protecting himself with a layer of fiction. The Republican characters, which present the daily life, difficulties and joys of exile in Britain, provided a testimonial value to the narrative. Finally, the British characters facilitate the expression of the exiles' ambivalence towards the country and a multi-dimensional depiction of exile.* * Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.