91- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Early in 1977 the literary censorship of the Franco era was abolished.
Under the Generalísimo progressive novelists, while surprisingly active
given the restrictions, only found a narrow intellectual readership.The wider
audience generally got what it was given. And so it took a decade for the
new Spain to adjust to its freedom and, in particular, to grasp the potential
of the novel. Work in translation and all-conquering Latin American lit from
the likes of Gabriel García Márquez and Miguel Ángel Asturias moistened
the Spanish palate. Recognising literature’s potential for firing up the
nation’s cultural rebirth, the government began funding promising writers. In
tandem, the growth of large publishers gave a spur to new authors.
The trickle of homespun writing soon became a flood and by the mid
1980s the public, newly comfortable with a novel stashed in the handbag,
by the bed or next to the sun lounger, were reading like never before.
Spanish literature has been governed by the novel ever since, with a varied
collection of authors writing across an equally mixed range of genres.
The new breed has sometimes been grouped under the collective heading
ofLos novísimos narradores(the new narrators).Growth of women’s literature
Spain has nearly as many female as male authors these days – a remarkable
advance given the literary gender bias that existed well into the 1970s.
Carmen Laforet and Ana Maria Matute laid the foundations in the years after
the Civil War, but it was Carmen Martín Gaite who did most to further
women’s literature in the 20thcentury. She won the Premio Nadal forEntre
Visillos(1958), on the daily humdrum of life for a girl in Salamanca, and was
still seducing readers half a century later with the likes ofLa Reina de las
Nieves(1994), about a young man recently released from prison. In the
1970s EstherTusquets spearheaded a new generation of women writers
preoccupied with their female protagonists’ control (or lack of it) over their
own destiny. By the mid 1980s many of the best novelists in Spain were
women. Montserrat Roig was the major feminist novelist of theTransición–
look out forLa hora violeta(1980), the final portion of a historical trilogy
about two matriarchal families in her native Catalonia.2.1.6 Off the leash: contemporary Spanish literature