George Orwell 
Homage to Catalonia 

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell’s personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the POUM militia of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. Though commercially unsuccessful when it came out the books went on to be listed in Guardian’s 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time. ’Homage to Catalonia’ is perhaps the seminal work in English about the Spanish Civil War. Written in Orwell’s admirably spare yet wonderfully evocative prose, it’s a searingly honest book, almost a rite of passage. It talks of the realities of the trenches and of the politics and of the feelings. He soon joins the POUM militia, a Marxist group affiliated with the Anarchists, and is sent to the front.