The Spanish civil war is considered a key point of analysis of the first half of the 1900s because of the peculiar context in which it developed, the ideologies that provoked it and for the controversies that still accompany it. An event of this magnitude has had and continues to have a great resonance in literature; this essay compares two authors at the antipodes, which well summarize the socio-political debate that accompanies the theme: José María Gironella, author close to the regime, and Juan Benet, hermetic writer. The contrast between the motivations and objectives of the two writers is accompanied by incompatible narrative choices. With memory as both a judge and a defendant, the authors open two different paths of communication with the reader: from history to man, from man to history.