Literature as a Response to Cultural and Political Repression in Franco’s Catalonia by Jordi Cornellà-Detrell (review)

In the last fifteen years there has been an avid interest in studying the culture of the postwar years in Spain. Under the “Ley de la Memoria Histórica”, Spaniards began to know more about some aspects of Franco’s dictatorship, such as cultural and political repression. This is precisely the subject of Jordi Cornellà-Detrell’s detailed analysis of four Catalan writers who struggled to publish their novels amidst the evident anti-Catalan political climate after the war. These authors and their works were Salvador Espriú’s Laia, Xavier Benguerels’ El testament, Sebastiá Juan Arbó’s Tino Costa, and Joan Sales’ Incerta glòria. According to Cornellà-Detrell, these novels represent the pinnacle of each writer’s careers.

The aim of this book is to show how these intellectuals substantially changed the format and the content of their novels over the years in order to resist the annihilating intellectual atmosphere of Franquism, and to adjust to the current social and political situation of Spain. For this purpose, this book is divided into six chapters plus a conclusion. Each one focuses on a particular author and the circumstances that triggered the revisions of their novels.

Chapters 1 and 2 serve as a chronological and social introduction, and also provide a methodological layout to help the reader understand how the rewriting process took place. For this purpose, Cornellà-Detrell evaluates the social, political and cultural contexts in which the works were created to illustrate the stylistic development that some of these authors experimented in order to appeal to new audiences. Cornellà-Detrell argues here the validity of the term ‘sacrificed generation’ used by some critics to refer to those authors who paved the path for younger generations to follow. He also notes how the linguistic repression imposed by Franco affected the writers’ confidence to use their own language and make them look for a way to standardize written Catalan. A contradictory situation ensued in which younger generations manifested purist attitudes and older authors aimed to renovate the language.

Chapter 3 centers on Salvador Espriu’s Laia and the rewriting process undertaken by it over a period of 36 years. Better known for his poetry, the narrative production of Spriu’s has, according to Cornellà-Detrell, yet to be fully explored.

Chapter 4 further examines this aspect by focusing on Xavier Benguerel’s El testament which ”echoes the fears and concerns of the author with regard to his difficulties in understanding and adapting to Franco’s Spain” (88). Benguerel wrote his novel after being away from Spain for 14 years, and reflects the detachment from Spanish reality so common to exiled artists during Franco’s dictatorship. Termed as a ‘Catholic novel’ by some critics, Cornellà-Detrell finds more appropriate the label ‘novel of manners’ because it offers an interesting insight into the rewriting of El testament. To Cornellà, together the three different versions of the novel represent a metaphor of Catalonia under Franco, which Benguerel createss by means of indirect language and disguised references to the Spanish reality.

Tino Costa, by Sebastiá Juan Arbó, is the focus of attention of the next chapter. Of the four novels studied here, this one was the only one not only to be allowed for publication in Catalan by the censors, but even for translation into Spanish. What is more, its author enjoyed modest recognition by fellow non-Catalan writers, even gaining the favor of the public and the critics alike. Cornellà-Detrell offers an interesting explanation for this very unusual phenomenon in Catalan literature by noting that the novel conveys certain values that complied with the regime’s ideology. By depicting rural life and its traditions, in contrast to the urban life associated with a more liberal environment (e.g Republic), Tino Costa became, in its own way, propaganda for Franco’s social and political program. In Cornellà-Detrell’s words, the formula for the text...