Testimony, updating and storytelling: the historical memory of Spanish Civil War in contemporary Catalan literature

Abstract

Since the mid-nineties onwards, the theme of the Civil War and Franco’s Dictatorship has generated in Spain an enormous number of novels, newspaper articles, historical research papers and audiovisual production that highlight the problematic relevance of the theme in the present time. This article focuses on one aspect of this production: those narrations that within Catalan literature have addressed it. It is an extensive body of works in which some of the most outstanding writers have been involved. Our approach aims to study this vast and diverse production, trying to figure out the motivations and narrative approaches that govern these proposals. We’ve discerned three basic models: the testimonial, the updater and the storyteller, and we have exemplified them with the works that we have considered the most representative. Likewise, we have identified a change regarding the model of representation of historical characters and events, which tends towards multiperspectivism and a more critical vision. This change is related to the public debate that the movement of recovery of historical memory has generated throughout Spain.