Dionisio Ridruejo (Soria, 1912-Madrid, 1975), was a Spanish writer and politician who belonged to the generation of ‘36 movement or the first post-war poetic generation. The trace of Dionisio was blurred after his entrance in the Falange until he almost became lost from public life after his return from the Blue Division in 1942. He eventually defended a social democratic position, even during the Franco dictatorship.

Materiales para una biografía include poems, letters and diaries of his experience in Russia with the Blue Division and other testimonies of a pulsating strength and depth. He wrote the most insightful and illuminating pages of the fascist phenomenon in Spain and was able to explain the steps that lead from his authorship of two verses of the Cara al sol to being the driving force in the sixties of a "left without rhetoric".

Jordi Gracia (Barcelona, 1965), Professor of Literature at the University of Barcelona, has dedicated several books to the intellectual history of Spain in the 20th century, and was responsible for the selection of texts for this volume.