Narrative Trends in Post-Civil War Spain
Narrative Trends From 1940 to the 1970s
From the end of the Civil War until today, there have been numerous trends in Spanish narrative, making critical synthesis difficult when grouped by decades. The profound trauma of the Civil War affected all aspects of life (repression, hunger, fear, isolation, exile) and a double censorship environment, both political and ecclesiastical, conditioned novelistic production, sharply breaking with previous innovation trends.
In this scenario, two main strands can be distinguished: the narrative practiced by Spanish writers in exile, and the various trends that existed in Spain under the Franco regime (1939-1975). These trends reflect different attitudes. First, attitudes of complacency towards the new regime, triumphalist narrative, the conqueror, propaganda, and evasion against harsh reality. Second, a critical trend, more or less obvious depending on the action of censorship, which appeared over successive decades and is identified by the realism of the treaty and the narrative techniques used. These two trends, ideologically antagonistic, have been known as rooted literature (suitable to the system) and uprooted literature (critical and existential).
Trends in Franco’s Spain (1939-1975) and Transition (1975-Present)
The 1940s: Existential and Alarmist Novels
This decade is marked by the existential novel and the alarmist novel. Nada (1944) by Carmen Laforet exemplifies the former, offering a portrait of the sordid and monotonous life of the postwar years in Barcelona through the experiences of a young protagonist in her first year as a college student. The alarmist novel reflects environments, situations, and characters of extraordinary hardness and violence, as seen in The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942) by Camilo José Cela. This story follows a peasant sentenced to death in Extremadura who recounts his life, full of terrible episodes (like the murder of his mother) and marked by a tragic destiny. This novel, high-impact at the time, was a milestone for its realism, dramatic end, and expressive power.
The 1950s: Social Realism
This decade corresponds to social realism, also known as critical realism or objectivism. Novelists offer testimony to the Spanish reality with the aim of raising awareness and contributing to social change. The theme of Spanish society after the war and its terrible situations of injustice arises with the necessary subtlety to avoid censorship, prison, or exile. The novel that initiated this trend is The Hive by Camilo José Cela, published in Buenos Aires in 1951 due to censorship. The Hive has a novel structure (perspectivism, alterations in chronological ordering) and centers on three days of sad and lonely postwar life in Madrid. Over three hundred characters (collective character novel) pass through, united by the atmosphere of misery, poverty, moral degradation, and alienation. Another representative novel is Jarama by Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, in which the narrator objectively recounts the dialogues and behaviors of a group of young people spending a holiday by the Jarama River. The basic theme is the inconsequential and empty life of a youth without prospects.
The 1960s: Formal Experimentation
Coinciding with a shy opening of the system, this decade is characterized by formal experimentation. The so-called structural novel or experimental novel is more concerned with formal and linguistic aspects than with the factual reproduction of reality. This experimental trend reflects the influences of great European novelists (Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust), American novelists (William Faulkner), and Latin American novelists (Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa). It incorporates techniques like interior monologue, the mixture of styles and registers, non-linear narratives, and narrative perspectivism. The most representative work is Tiempo de silencio (1962) by Luis Martín-Santos, which recounts the failure of a young doctor devoted to research who, after being imprisoned for his involvement in an involuntary abortion and after his girlfriend is murdered, abandons science for rural medical practice. Other representative authors of this trend, besides Cela, are Juan Goytisolo (Marks of Identity), Juan Benet (Return to Región), Miguel Delibes (Five Hours with Mario), and Juan Marsé (Last Evenings with Teresa).
From the 1970s: Synthesis of Experimental and Traditional
From the 1970s, novelists sought a synthesis between experimental and traditional narrative. Some ridiculed and parodied experimental excess (e.g., Torrente Ballester in La saga/fuga de J.B.), but most combined the new with the traditional. An example of this syncretism is The Truth about the Savolta Case (1975) by Eduardo Mendoza, which begins experimentally with short, apparently unconnected excerpts in non-chronological order, but ends in a linear development that reconstructs events and explains the initial fragments. Other representative novelists of this current are Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Francisco Umbral, Antonio Muñoz Molina, Juan José Millás, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Luis Landero, Luis Mateo Díez, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
The Spanish Novel in Exile
Regarding the novel of exile, key figures include Max Aub, Francisco Ayala, Rosa Chacel, Arturo Barea, and Ramón J. Sender. Sender’s Requiem for a Spanish Peasant (1953) is set during the Civil War. While preparing for the funeral of Paco, a priest recalls the life and death of this young man, a victim of the hatred unleashed by the war. The return of some of these writers after Franco’s death further enriched a narrative overview that, to date, exhibits great diversity.