Literature as a Response to Cultural and Political Repression in Franco's Catalonia

A thoroughly researched and documented study of Catalan literature under the Franco regime, focussed on several key post-Civil War novels and their authors.

During the 1950s and 1960s, several key Catalan authors set about rewriting some of their narrative work despite the obstacles to publication in Catalan under the Franco regime. This study describes the social, political and cultural conditions that impelled Salvador Espriu, Xavier Benguerel, Sebastià Juan Arbó and Joan Sales to revise Laia, El testament, Tino Costa and Incerta glòria, concentrating particularly on the linguistic debates and literary trends from the 1950s to the early 1970s.
Drawing on a wide range of theoretical perspectives, this book examines the reasons for the rewriting, including censorship and self-censorship, generational and ideological changes within the Catalan literary field, controversies over linguistic purism, the appearance of new literary trends and gender and political issues. It focuses on the (re)construction of a distinctive national identity and the impact of repression, memory, exile and silence on the representation of the war and the post-war periods. This study explores not only how writers or society at large were affected by the dictatorship, but how the armed conflict left its mark on the writing process itself.

Jordi Cornellà-Detrell is a Lecturer in Spanish in the School of Modern Languages at Bangor University.