Hemingway called Madrid ‘the most Spanish of all cities’ and the ‘centre of the world’; it was a place that drew him back again and again. But he wasn’t the only writer to have been inspired by this proud city which fizzes with energy and is so infused with art and literature. From the Café Gijón, a popular hang-out of Lorca, Dalí and Buñuel, and the Bar Chicote, Hemingway’s preferred watering hole and a popular haunt for bohemian Madrid during the Civil War, to the Hotel Florida where John Dos Passos and Antoine de Saint Exupéry used to stay, to the grave of Lope de Vega and the house in which Cervantes took his last breath, this unique guide takes the reader on a colourful journey that spans four centuries and brings to life the people and places that make Madrid the heart of literary Spain.