The National Award in Narrative Literature and the Role of Art in Democratic Spain (1977 - 2011)
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THE NATIONAL AWARD IN NARRATIVE LITERATURE AND THE ROLE OF ART IN DEMOCRATIC SPAIN (1977 - 2011) BY SALLY ANN PERRET DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor L. Elena Delgado, Chair Associate Professor Robert Rushing Associate Professor Joyce Tolliver Emeritus Professor John Wilcox ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I examine the history and function(s) of the National Award in Narrative Literature—a prize that is sponsored by the Spanish state—to highlight the role the award has played in the creation of “national cohesion” and therefore in maintaining a specific idea of Spain and of Spanish literature in the democratic period. Although the issuing of the National Award is just one of many practices that informs how the concept of the nation is understood, I argue that it is one of few that allow us to analyze ways in which literature has explicitly contributed to the image of Spain as a multicultural, yet cohesive nation-state. In order to further explore this idea, I first analyze the rules that have governed the National Award at four different stages in the democratic period to show how the prize has evolved to include a wider variety of author/texts of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds than ever before. I then demonstrate how, as one of the more visible literary prizes in the country, the National Award also serves to promote a specific idea of literature as a “high art” worthy of praise. I maintain that it is because literature is viewed as a distinct space, one that is both tied to and distanced from reality, that the idea of a multicultural yet cohesive national literary canon can be sustained. Finally, I also explore the role the National Award plays in promoting democratic values, in general, and active citizenship, in particular. I claim that, in addition to being a practice that benefits the state, the National Award also has the potential to be a platform from which to discuss a wide variety of social issues. In all, I argue that the National Award in Narrative Literature can be read as a powerful metaphor of the limitations and possibilities that nearly thirty-five years of democracy have brought to Spain. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am extremely grateful to Professor L. Elena Delgado for her endless support and advice. Her patience, encouragement and insights have been an invaluable source of inspiration to me; I only hope one day to become as good a reader as she is. Thanks also to Professor John Wilcox with whom I discovered the richness of twentieth-century Spanish literature and culture. His availability, his feedback and his motivational speeches have been crucial to the completion of this dissertation. My warmest thanks to Professor Joyce Tolliver, whose course on Professional Writing taught me how to overcome the blank page. Her comments and recommendations of books have been indispensable to me throughout my time as a graduate student. I have great appreciation for Professor Robert Rushing’s support and astute feedback. His incredibly perceptive readings of my work have been extremely instrumental. Many thanks to the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics for allowing me to focus on my research with their generous financial support. I would also like to thank the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, whose conferences, seminars and reading groups fundamentally altered my worldview. The two courses I took with Professor James Hay, in particular, as part of the Unit’s requirements for certification, greatly inspired the theoretical framework for this dissertation. I am also indebted to the faculty in the Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese and to my fellow graduate students for creating a challenging intellectual environment in which I have grown during my studies. Thank you Mark Bajus, Pamela Cappas-Toro, Megan Kelly, Mario López-González, Kristina Pittman, Lily Martínez, Kristina Medina, Luján Stasevicius, iii Clara Valdano and Ana Vivancos, with whom I have shared many wonderful memories. Thanks also to Professor Ericka Beckman and to Eleonora Stoppino for the theoretically engaged courses they offered; their dedication to teaching and seemingly endless knowledge made going to class a true pleasure. I also appreciate the time I spent with Brenden Carollo and Melanie Waters, whose practical advice and good nature enriched my life on multiple occasions. Finally, I express my deepest gratitude to my husband Arnaud and to my mom Susan for their unwavering patience and encouragement. I have greatly appreciated their willingness to allow me to work through ideas with them; their love and support are endless. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 1.1 The Birth of National Literary Prizes and their Role in Contemporary Spain ..................... 4 1.2 The Significance of the National Award in the Land of a Thousand Prizes ....................... 14 CHAPTER TWO: IN THE NAME OF THE NATION: THE NATIONAL AWARD IN NARRATIVE LITERATURE AND THE PROMOTION OF STATE CULTURE IN DEMOCRATIC SPAIN ........................................................................................................... 32 2.1 The Ministry of Culture and the Making of Democratic Subjects ...................................... 40 2.2 The Inception of Democracy and the Who’s Who of National Literature (1977-1984) .... 46 2.3 The Transition to Democracy and the Re-Mapping of National Culture (1984-1995) ...... 58 2.4 National Subjects and the Cultural Boundaries of Citizenship in Democratic Spain: (1995-2010) .......................................................................................................................... 83 CHAPTER THREE: THE NATIONAL AWARD AND THE ART OF LITERATURE IN ZAMORA VICENTE’S MESA SOBREMESA AND MUÑOZ MOLINA’S EL INVIERNO EN LISBOA ............................................................................................................................... 94 3.1 The National Award and the Idea of Literature .................................................................. 96 3.2 The Idea of Literature and the Muddled World of Public Opinion in Mesa, sobremesa .. 102 3.3 The Essence of Art and the Search for Meaning in El invierno en Lisboa ....................... 122 CHAPTER FOUR: DEMOCRACY AND ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP IN THE PRIZE- WINNING WORKS OF CARMEN MARTÍN GAITE AND KIRMEN URIBE .................. 146 4.1 Democracy and the Call for Active Citizenship ............................................................... 150 4.2 From Dictatorship to Democracy: Carmen Martín Gaite and the Power of Art ............... 157 4.3 Transcending Borders: Bilbao-New York-Bilbao and the Limits of Labels .................... 178 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................... 207 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................... 214 v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION In a talk given at the 1959 University of Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, literary scholar José Sánchez (University of Illinois) opened his paper on Spanish Literary Prizes with the following affirmation: “No existe en el mundo de hoy país donde haya más revistas literarias, reuniones literarias y premios literarios que en España. Los premios literarios españoles son una plaga, tal vez una plaga incurable, una enfermedad crónica en la actualidad literaria española” (“There is no country in the world where there are more literary magazines, literary meetings and literary prizes than in Spain. Spanish literary prizes are a plague, perhaps an incurable plague, a chronic sickness in contemporary Spanish literature”; 189).1 Interestingly, at the time Sánchez was writing there were only 175 literary prizes in Spain. If Sánchez thought this sum were indicative of a “plague” what would he say now that there are an estimated 1,800 literary prizes in the country today (Rodríguez Marcos)?2 As a point of comparison, Nicole Witt points out that 1 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 2 The number of literary prizes has continued to increase exponentially in democratic Spain. In 1996, for instance, there were an estimated 1,000 different literary awards in the country (Rodríguez Marcos), a figure that rose to 1,300 by 2000 (Witt 306), 1,500 by 2001 (Belmonte Serrano 44), and is now thought to be around 1,800. And, if we take into account the number of prizes that are available to Spanish citizens online, the number almost doubles. The website premisliterarios.com, for instance, offers its subscribers access to over 3,500 literary prizes ( qtd. in Rodríguez Marcos). 1 in 2001 there were only 700 literary prizes issued in Germany (306), and in a 2009 article in El país, Peruvian writer Fernando Iwaski was quoted as saying, “La cantidad de premios [literarios] que hay en España es algo que sorprende a cualquier extranjero, sobre todo si viene del Perú donde sólo hay tres” (“The quantity of [literary] prizes in Spain is surprising for any foreigner, especially if one comes from Peru where there are only three”; qtd. in Rodríguez Marcos). In fact, there