Julio Camba

There is a certain consensus in considering Julio Camba (1884-1962) one of the best Spanish journalists of the 20th century and, probably, the best foreign correspondent during the first decades of the last century. Despite this certainty, his elusive and reserved character has prevented us from accessing his intimacy, that perishable ego that he himself made an effort to hide, under the mask of his well-known character. Apart from the autobiographical data provided by the brief memoirs of his Argentine youth and others scattered in the several thousand articles that he published, we lack other testimonies that help us delve into his elusive personality. This biography reconstructs Camba's itinerary through an agile and fluid story, but excellently documented, in which Francisco Fuster has approached, in a joint and balanced way, the narration of the protagonist's life events and the detailed analysis of the work of the. In convulsive years, Camba's virtuous pen emerged, above the rest, to make him not a simple columnist, but an exceptional chronicler of his time: a master of the trade who contributed to painting, in black on white, the true portrait of his time.