UC Berkeley

This dissertation explores the interaction between literature, politics and history in post-Franco Spain. More specifically, I examine the relationship between the Spanish Transition to democracy (1975-1983) and novels produced in Catalonia during that time.

The first chapter is an analysis of the historical and political events that encompass the Transition, including a study of the major legislative texts of the period--the Amnesty Laws, the Pacts of Moncloa, and the Constitution (1978). Special attention is given to the so-called Pact of Silence, an unofficial and unwritten agreement between political elites, which vowed to essentially forget the recent past of the Civil War and Franco dictatorship, in order to secure a stable, democratic future. While most historians and political scientists point to the Pact as a major contributing factor to Spain's successful democratization, my contention is that this political silence caused a grave manipulation of collective memory, and was a great injustice to the Spanish and Catalan people.

Whereas the political realm of the Spanish Transition was based on the Pact of Silence and forgetting, the novels of the time period seemed to be based on a pact of remembering. The second and third chapters use two Catalan novelists, Montserrat Roig (1946-1991) and Juan Marsé (1933-), to study the way in which the relationships between literature, history and politics outlined in Chapter One play out in specific novels. For both of these authors, fiction provides a space to break the Pact of Silence and restore justice.

In the second and third chapters, the focus of the dissertation narrows to examine the relationship between the Spanish Transition and the novel particularly in Catalonia. The study starts with an explanation of what Kathryn Crameri calls the Language/Literature/Catalanism Equation, which underscores the importance of language to nation-building, especially in Catalonia. I also see the way in which the Catalan Estatut d'Autonomia (1979) dialogues with the other legislative texts which come out of the Transition. After a general overview of the life and work of Montserrat Roig, I offer a close reading of her final novel, La veu melodiosa (1987), focusing on the themes of silence and justice. For Roig, and unlike the Pact of Silence, looking to the past is a necessity and yields various positive benefits; it is the basis of the formation of personal and collective identity, it is necessary for the administration of social justice, and it is the only means of ensuring a healthy future.

Chapter Three is a case study of yet another novelist, 2008 Premio Cervantes winner Juan Marsé, which begins with discussion of his bicultural identity (Catalan and Spanish). His novel, Si te dicen que caí (1963), is used as a segue to discuss censorship under the Franco dictatorship; I postulate that the rhetorical silence in post-Franco novels is due in large part to the internalization of the silence of censorship. The common thread in Marsé's work is an emphasis on storytelling, especially as it concerns marginalized and silenced histories. Fiction allows Marsé to create alternative realties which often serve to break down the binaries inherited from Francoism. I do a close reading of Un día volveré (1982) focusing on the various stories that go against the Official History narrated by the State, and pay special attention to the way in which Marsé subverts myths, particularly the myth of St. George, in order to propose a new order for Spanish and Catalan culture, one based on multiplicity and forgiveness. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how Marsé's El amante bilingue (1990) dialogues with the Catalan Law of Linguistic Normalization.

The fourth and final chapter is a return to the political realm with discussion of the 2007 Law of Historical Memory in Spain. I do a close reading of the legislative text, focusing primarily on the articles related to the unearthing of the mass graves of the Civil War, as well as the establishment of the Centro Documental de la Memoria Histórica. The law, as well as the ongoing controversy surrounding it, indicates that the justice-related issues generated by the Spanish Transition to democracy, and the concerns which manifested in the novels of the time, are still relevant in current-day Spain. I conclude the dissertation with a return to literature, briefly discussing Javier Cercas' Anatomía de un instante (2009) as a literary response to concrete political events, in order to solidify the notion that history, politics, and literature in post-Franco Spain are inextricably linked.