Mark Derby asked Amanda Vaill:

Dear Ms Vaill I'm a New Zealand historian, and the author of several books on the Spanish Civil War. I admired "Hotel Florida" and plan to quote from it in my next book, a biography of Doug Jolly, the NZ surgeon who operated on Gerda Taro at Brunete. I'd love to know more about your sources of information for characters such as the US nurse Irene Goldin. Is there a secure way to discuss this?

Amanda Vaill Dear Mark Derby,

Thanks for your kind comment about "Hotel Florida." If you read the notes carefully you should find most of your questions answered: despite the narrative texture of the book, it's rigorously sourced, with details (including people's thoughts, place descriptions, even the weather) drawn from the accounts, or photographs, of those who were eyewitnesses. It helps that the people involved were mainly journalists and kept notes, or wrote dispatches or letters or memoirs (or took pictures) documenting their experience.

In the case of Irene Goldin I benefited from the resourcefulness of the documentary filmmaker Trisha Ziff, whose wonderful film "The Mexican Suitcase" was my source for Goldin's testimony (https://www.amazon.com/Mexican-Suitca...).

You can email me at [email protected] if you want to have an extended conversation about Goldin or Taro or anything else. Thanks so much for your interest --

Amanda Vaill

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