Fictional Portrayals of Spain's Transition to Democracy

Book excerpt: This manuscript looks at a selection of narratives published in Spain during the transition to democracy and compares them with more recent publications. The main focus here is how fiction brings an extra dimension to the recreation of the past, by adding imagination to historical fact. One effect of this is to challenge readers or spectators to question the effect the reliability of the narrator has on conviction about the events told. By using a specific moment in time, Spain’s Transition, it will be seen that memory, history and imagination all blend together to create very different stories, but all are linked with the idea that the past will always haunt the present and actions from the past will have far-reaching consequences. Texts analysed here include work by Javier Cercas, Eduardo Mendoza, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Rosa Montero, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, and Gonzalo López Alba, as well as episodes from two popular TV series, Cuéntame cómo pasó and Protagonistas de la Transición.