The terms « gripper» (French), « to grip» (English) or « greifen» (German) mean in Spanish « agarrar, atrapar». The name of influenza is believed to have been used in the city of Florence in the 14th century (by Villani in 1358), considering that the disease was due to the « influenza di freddo» (to the cold) or « di stelle» (to the stars, by the astrological theories in those times). All literature books are cited in the Tables with authors and their books in English and Spanish and we include books about the previous and subsequent influenza pandemics to the Spanish flu. In neither case it is an exhaustive review, but it focuses mainly on Anglo-Saxon literary work and from other countries, including Spanish and Latin American literature that is not very represented in some international reviews on the subject. This review focuses on the fictional literature in which influenza is represented either as an anecdotal or as a historical aspect and the effect on the author or fictional character. This pandemic has been reviewed from different points of view: sociological or historical and the origin of the flu.

About the Spanish flu, there are different studies, this is not an exhaustive list, in the world and in Spain with its spatial-temporal patterns. The Spanish flu, in 1918, killed 50-100 million people in the World and, in Spain, caused as many deaths as in the Spanish Civil War. Another pandemic has been in 2005, the avian flu, with the emerging cultural patterns and interpretative repertoires and metaphors.

During epidemics and pandemics in 1847–18–1893, it was recognized that the respiratory complications of flu could greatly elevate the death rate. In the 18th century, the influenza pandemic between 1708-1709 was not fairly assessed. Flu has caused global pandemics over the centuries.

Adios a berlin christopher isherwood