Memory and Trauma in the Postwar Spanish Novel: Revisiting the Past

Table of Contents:
Contents Introduction Sarah Leggott and Ross Woods Section One. Revisiting the Past: Memory and History The Ghosts of the Past: Revisiting La familia de Pascual Duarte Ross Woods Remembering the Canon: La familia de Pascual Duarte and Nada revisited Anne Walsh War, History, and Memory in Arturo Barea’s La forja de un rebelde Alison Ribeiro de Menezes Memory and History in Ana María Matute’s Los soldados lloran de noche Francis Lough Section Two. Reading the Wounded Generation: Pluralistic Trauma Opening and Closing History’s Wounds: Mercedes Salisachs’ Los que se quedan Christine Arkinstall Representing Individual and Collective Trauma: Dolores Medio’s Nosotros, los Rivero Sarah Leggott Ignacio Aldecoa’s El fulgor y la sangre: The Politics of Memory under Franco Julia van Luijk Section Three. Narrating Traumatic Experience: Uncovered Trauma “The Unsuspected Truth”: Silence and Trauma in Carmen Laforet’s Nada Federico Bonaddio The Trauma of Coming of Age in Rosa Chacel’s Memorias de Leticia Valle and Ana María Matute’s Primera memoria Daniela Omlor The Cathartic Exercise of Memory in María Zambrano’s Delirio y destino Beatriz Caballero Rodríguez Bibliography About the Contributors

About the Author :
Sarah Leggott is associate professor of Spanish and head of the School of Languages and Cultures at Victoria University of Wellington. Ross Woods is a lecturer in Spanish at Victoria University of Wellington.

Review :
Based on scholarly research, these essays examine the notion of collective and historical memory after the Spanish Civil War and Franco's dictatorship. The book examines individual texts and authors of the Spanish postwar period as a way of offering new perspectives on canonical and little-studied works and of presenting theoretical approaches to memory pertinent to Spanish novels written in the postwar era. One essay investigates representations of trauma in works that have been neglected. Another is dedicated exclusively to novels written by Spanish women from the 1940s to the 1960s, exploring the relationships between history and collective memory, remembering and forgetting, and literary representations of individual and collective trauma through the works of David Herzberger. The book concludes with extensive notes, a thorough bibliography, and a concise index. This is a good tool for those interested in the Spanish Civil War and debates on collective memory in literature. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty.