Rafael Alberti first gained prominence when he received the National Prize of Literature for Marinero en tierra (The Land-Locked Sailor) in 1925. He was at his sister María's home in Rute, in the province of Córdoba, when the telegram arrived announcing the award for poetry, which he shared with Gerardo Diego, who won for Versos humanos (Human Verses). A few days later Alberti left for Madrid to collect the badly needed prize money (five thousand pesetas), and to thank the members of the committee for their vote in his favor. The members were the distinguished poets Antonio Machado and José Moreno Villa, the established critics Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Gabriel Maura, the popular playwright Carlos Arniches, and the outstanding novelist Gabriel Miró. (The committee had voted unanimously in Alberti's favor. Then Maura had proposed Diego's Versos humanos for a...