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The 'Truth' of the Past: Fiction as an Alternative to History in Contemporary Spanish Narratives of the Civil War and the Holocaust

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>2016
<mark>Journal</mark>Hispanic Research Journal
Issue number4
Volume17
Number of pages17
Pages (from-to)322-338
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This article explores the debates regarding the use of fiction to represent traumatic twentieth-century experiences. Through an analysis of Jorge Semprún's Quel beau dimanche (1980) and L'écriture ou la vie (1994), Antonio Muñoz Molina's Sefarad (2001) and Alberto Méndez's Los girasoles ciegos (2004), it interrogates the value and morality of contemporary Spanish novelists' use of fiction to explore the past. At the same time, this article seeks to build on a nascent field of critical investigation by drawing links between how novelists have written about two different historical experiences: the Spanish Civil War and the Holocaust.