Viva Espana
Details
Next theme is Spain. The same format de siempre - pick a book, read a book talk about the book. The following are suggestions only so if something else picks your fancy, feel free to ignore.
## 1. Miguel de Cervantes
Who / why:
The foundational figure of Spanish literature and one of the inventors of the modern novel. His work established irony, metafiction, and psychological depth as central literary tools.
Representative work:
- Don Quixote
***
## 2. Federico García Lorca
Who / why:
Spain’s most internationally influential poet and dramatist of the 20th century. His work fuses folklore, surrealism, eroticism, and political tragedy; his murder during the Civil War made him a cultural symbol.
Representative works:
- Gypsy Ballads
- The House of Bernarda Alba
***
## 3. Carmen Laforet
Who / why:
A defining voice of post–Civil War Spain. Her debut novel captured the moral suffocation and psychological disorientation of Francoist society, especially for women.
Representative work:
- Nada
***
## 4. Camilo José Cela
Who / why:
Nobel laureate whose brutal realism and stylistic experimentation reshaped Spanish prose after the Civil War. His work exposes violence, cruelty, and survival without sentiment.
Representative work:
- The Family of Pascual Duarte
***
## 5. Ana María Matute
Who / why:
One of Spain’s great postwar novelists. Her lyrical, morally intense fiction often centres on childhood, trauma, and the long shadow of the Civil War.
Representative work:
- The Forgotten King Gudú
***
## 6. Javier Marías
Who / why:
A major contemporary novelist known for long, meditative sentences and philosophical digressions. His work explores secrecy, memory, betrayal, and moral hesitation.
Representative work:
- A Heart So White
***
## 7. Mercè Rodoreda
(Wrote in Catalan)
Who / why:
The most important modern Catalan novelist. Her psychologically subtle, poetic prose gives voice to women, exile, and urban life before and after the Civil War.
Representative work:
- The Time of the Doves
***
## 8. Bernardo Atxaga
(Writes in Basque)
Who / why:
The most internationally recognised Basque writer. His work blends myth, metafiction, rural memory, and political unease.
Representative work:
- Obabakoak
***
## 9. Rosalía de Castro
(Wrote in Galician)
Who / why:
Founder of modern Galician literature. Her poetry combines lyric melancholy, feminism, exile, and social critique, and helped revive Galician as a literary language.
Representative work:
- Leaves of the New
***
## 10. Antonio Muñoz Molina
Who / why:
A major late-20th-century novelist whose elegant realism weaves together memory, politics, music, and personal history.
Representative work:
- Sepharad
***
## 11. Cristina Morales
Who / why:
A radical contemporary voice: anarchic, feminist, and formally disruptive. Her work challenges ideas of normality, power, and cultural authority.
Representative work:
- Easy Reading
***
## 12. Luis Martín-Santos
Who / why:
Introduced European modernism (Joyce, Faulkner) into Spanish fiction under Franco. Hugely influential despite a short life and a single major novel.
Representative work:
- Time of Silence
***
## 13. Ignacio Aldecoa
Who / why:
One of Spain’s finest short-story writers. His Chekhovian realism portrays ordinary lives with moral seriousness and emotional restraint under Francoism.
Representative works:
- Selected Stories of Ignacio Aldecoa
***
## 14. Emilia Pardo Bazán
Who / why:
A pioneer of Spanish realism and naturalism, and a major feminist intellectual. She modernised the Spanish novel and expanded women’s literary authority.
Representative work:
- The House of Ulloa
***
## 15. Leopoldo Alas
Who / why:
Author of one of the great 19th-century European novels. His work combines psychological realism, satire, and moral scrutiny of provincial life.
Representative work:
- La Regenta
***
## 16. José Ángel Valente
Who / why:
One of Spain’s most important late-20th-century poets. His work is austere, metaphysical, and ethically demanding, shaped by exile and mysticism.
Representative work:
- The Stone and the Centre