Spanish Post-Civil War Novel: Literary Evolution and Key Authors

Spanish Post-Civil War Novel: Literary Evolution

The 1940s Literary Landscape

The Spanish novel of the 1940s was profoundly marked by exile, harsh censorship, and the promotion of idealistic novels that extolled the values of the Francoist regime.

Idealistic Novel

During the initial years of Franco's rule, propaganda-driven novels were published that glorified the war, the regime, and its values. Notable works include La fiel infantería by Rafael García Serrano and Javier Mariño by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester. There was also another idealistic narrative that sought to forget the war.

Existential Novel

This type of novel attempts to reflect everyday life. Its recurring themes include loneliness, the frustration of hopes, the uprooting of characters in a vulgar and miserable society, and the omnipresence of death. Representative novels include:

• La familia de Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela, a milestone in Spanish literary history. This existential novel introduces a grisly variant known as 'tremendismo,' which emphasizes the most abhorrent human behavior. Pascual Duarte is a criminal who writes his life story before his execution and is presented as a victim of his family and social origins. The novel is clearly influenced by the picaresque tradition and Naturalism.
• Nada by Carmen Laforet, which won the first Nadal Prize. It tells the story of a young girl who arrives in Barcelona as a student in the years following the Civil War.
• La sombra del ciprés es alargada, Miguel Delibes's first novel, which reflects life in a provincial capital.
• El camino, by Miguel Delibes, recounts the last night of Daniel, el Mochuelo (the Little Owl), as he faces leaving his rural home to study in the city.

Key Authors of the Post-War Period

Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

In the 1940s, he wrote Javier Mariño as a defense of his Falangist ideology's values. In the 1950s, he published his realistic trilogy Los gozos y las sombras (The Joys and the Shadows), which chronicles the decline of an old noble family in the years before the Civil War. In the 1960s, he wrote experimental novels such as La saga/fuga de J.B. His later novels include Filomeno, a mi pesar and Crónica del rey pasmado.

Ramón J. Sender

He was one of the most important authors in exile. Notable works include Crónica del alba and Réquiem por un campesino español.