9781837721566
Distributed for University of Wales Press
The Other Catalans
Representations of Immigration in Catalan Literature
The first book to explore how Catalan literature has depicted the social and cultural consequences of immigration in the twentieth century.
Catalonia has for centuries been a destination for immigrants: first from neighboring regions, then from all over Spain, and in the last twenty-five years from the whole world. Currently, sixteen percent of the Catalan population was born outside Spain, and well over seventy-five percent of Catalans have a migrant origin. Yet the Catalans see themselves as a distinct society, and many of them are claiming political self-determination.
Surveying the 1930s to the present, The Other Catalans provides a comprehensive examination of Catalan literature on immigration or by authors of migrant origin. It combines detailed readings of major texts with an awareness of the historical developments regarding immigration, providing readers with vital contextualization of migration and its literary representations. Covering both Catalan responses to immigration and literary accounts of the migrant experience, the book examines how immigration has shaped discourses of identity and otherness in Catalan culture; how the work of mourning is affected in migrant literature; how issues of language and space articulate with social and political conflict in these texts; and in what ways these issues are inflected by gender and sexuality.
Catalonia has for centuries been a destination for immigrants: first from neighboring regions, then from all over Spain, and in the last twenty-five years from the whole world. Currently, sixteen percent of the Catalan population was born outside Spain, and well over seventy-five percent of Catalans have a migrant origin. Yet the Catalans see themselves as a distinct society, and many of them are claiming political self-determination.
Surveying the 1930s to the present, The Other Catalans provides a comprehensive examination of Catalan literature on immigration or by authors of migrant origin. It combines detailed readings of major texts with an awareness of the historical developments regarding immigration, providing readers with vital contextualization of migration and its literary representations. Covering both Catalan responses to immigration and literary accounts of the migrant experience, the book examines how immigration has shaped discourses of identity and otherness in Catalan culture; how the work of mourning is affected in migrant literature; how issues of language and space articulate with social and political conflict in these texts; and in what ways these issues are inflected by gender and sexuality.
304 pages | 12.52 x 8.5 | © 2024
Iberian and Latin American Studies
History: European History
Literature and Literary Criticism: General Criticism and Critical Theory
Political Science: Political Behavior and Public Opinion
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Josep-Anton Fernàndez
Part I: Otherness and Representational Authority
1. On Masks and Cracks: Positions of Authority in the Portrayal of the Migrant Phenomenon in Catalan Literature
Mercè Picornell Belenguer
2. Egalitarian Aesthetics and the Literary Representation of Immigration: The Work of Julià de Jòdar
Àlex Matas Pons
3. The Representation of the forasters by the Majorcan Literary Generation of the 1970s
Guillem Colom-Montero
Part II: Spaces, Borders and Memory
4. To Speak the Unspeakable: Francesc Candel and the Trespass of Borders
Olga Sendra Ferrer
5. Barcelona and Valencian Immigration: Julià Guillamon’s El barri de la Plata
Teresa Iribarren
6. ‘Catalunya termina aquí. Aquí comença Vietnam’: Urbanism, Migration and Spatial Immunity in Jordi Puntí’s Els castellans
William Viestenz
Part III: Disidentification, Dislocation and Mourning
7. ‘Te deix, mare, un fill com a penyora’: Disidentificatory Intertextuality in Najat El Hachmi’s La filla estrangera
Natasha Tanna
8. Limits and Borders in No, by Saïd El Kadaoui
Roger Canadell Rusiñol
9. Mourning, Trauma and Ambivalence in the Catalan Literature of the Argentine Diaspora: Silvana Vogt’s La mecànica de l’aigua
Josep-Anton Fernàndez
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Josep-Anton Fernàndez
Part I: Otherness and Representational Authority
1. On Masks and Cracks: Positions of Authority in the Portrayal of the Migrant Phenomenon in Catalan Literature
Mercè Picornell Belenguer
2. Egalitarian Aesthetics and the Literary Representation of Immigration: The Work of Julià de Jòdar
Àlex Matas Pons
3. The Representation of the forasters by the Majorcan Literary Generation of the 1970s
Guillem Colom-Montero
Part II: Spaces, Borders and Memory
4. To Speak the Unspeakable: Francesc Candel and the Trespass of Borders
Olga Sendra Ferrer
5. Barcelona and Valencian Immigration: Julià Guillamon’s El barri de la Plata
Teresa Iribarren
6. ‘Catalunya termina aquí. Aquí comença Vietnam’: Urbanism, Migration and Spatial Immunity in Jordi Puntí’s Els castellans
William Viestenz
Part III: Disidentification, Dislocation and Mourning
7. ‘Te deix, mare, un fill com a penyora’: Disidentificatory Intertextuality in Najat El Hachmi’s La filla estrangera
Natasha Tanna
8. Limits and Borders in No, by Saïd El Kadaoui
Roger Canadell Rusiñol
9. Mourning, Trauma and Ambivalence in the Catalan Literature of the Argentine Diaspora: Silvana Vogt’s La mecànica de l’aigua
Josep-Anton Fernàndez
Bibliography