Spanish Novel Evolution: 1960s to Present

The Experimental Novel (1960-1970)

Time of Silence by Luis Martín Santos (1962), marks the end of social realism and the beginning of a total renovation of the novel. From this point on, authors became increasingly concerned with formal aspects, leading to a renewal of narrative techniques. For the first time in Spain, novelists turned their attention to the innovations that the genre had experienced worldwide since the beginning of the century. The Latin American narrative, formally much more innovative than ours, experienced its famous "boom" with works like: The City and the Dogs (1962) by Mario Vargas Llosa, Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, and One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez.

Some of the most relevant titles and authors of these trends are: Marks of Identity (1966) by Juan Goytisolo, Five Hours with Mario (1966) by Miguel Delibes, Last Afternoons with Teresa (1966) by Juan Marsé, and Return to Region (1967) by Juan Benet.

Formal Innovations:

1. Plot: Loses significance and becomes irrelevant. The important thing is the focus.
2. Characters: Are beings in conflict with their environment and their own personality. They are unbalanced, confused, or have psychological disorders.
3. Time: There is a double renewal:
   • Reduction of chronological boundaries: in which the novel develops. In the central part of Five Hours with Mario, the story unfolds in one night.
   • Reduction of space: Sometimes, this temporary reduction is accompanied by a reduction in space. In Delibes' novel, the setting is the deceased's office.
   • Breaking of temporal linearity: The chronological order is broken with references to before or after the time of action. Stories are told simultaneously, alternating sequences.
4. Narrator: Predominantly omniscient narrator, although often employs the technique of interior monologue (which allows us to see the characters' thoughts, springing from unchecked ellipses, inconsistencies, disordered syntax, etc.) and digressions of the author (the author makes comments).

Recent Years (From the 1960s to the Modern Novel)

In the mid-1960s, there was a kind of weariness with innovations, and authors, both new and established, seemed to turn their eyes towards more traditional ways of writing novels. Perhaps most relevant is the presentation of the plot, which seems to regain its importance as the basis of the narrative work. Some representative novels are: The Truth About the Savolta Case (1975) by Eduardo Mendoza, and Southern Seas (1979) by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.

The narrative tendencies of these authors are still alive in the modern novel and are reaffirmed by writers of the generation of the 1980s, including Javier Marías, Rosa Montero, Julio Llamazares, Almudena Grandes, and Antonio Muñoz Molina. In 2004, Alberto Méndez published The Blind Sunflowers, a novel set in the Spanish Civil War.