Bilingual Legacies: Father Figures in Self-Writing from Barcelona

by Anna Casas Aguilar

Overview

Bilingual Legacies examines fatherhood in the work of four canonical Spanish authors born in Barcelona and raised during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Drawing on the autobiographical texts of Juan Goytisolo, Carlos Barral, Terenci Moix, and Clara Janés, the book explores how these authors understood gender roles and paternal figures as well as how they positioned themselves in relation to Spanish and Catalan literary traditions.

Anna Casas Aguilar contends that through their presentation of father figures, these authors subvert static ideas surrounding fatherhood. She argues that this diversity was crucial in opening the door to revised gender models in Spain during the democratic period. Moving beyond the shadow of the dictator, Casas Aguilar shows how these writers distinguished between the patriarchal "father of the nation" and their own paternal figures. In doing so, Bilingual Legacies sheds light on the complexity of Spanish conceptions of gender, language, and family and illustrates how notions of masculinity, authorship, and canon are interrelated.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487545000
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	07/12/2022
Series:	Toronto Iberic
Pages:	228
Sales rank:	230,891
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anna Casas Aguilar is an assistant professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Filiations

2. Juan Goytisolo: Oedipal Dissolutions

3. Carlos Barral: Masculine Subjectivity and the Catalan Father

4. Terenci Moix: Linguistic and Sexual Disaffiliations

5. Clara Janés: Fatherhood and the Feminine

Afterword: Bilingual Legacies

Notes

Works Cited

Index

What People are Saying About This

Mario Santana

"Through an illuminating reading of the autobiographical works of four major literary figures — Juan Goytisolo, Carlos Barral, Terenci Moix, and Clara Janés — Anna Casas Aguilar interrogates the complex interplay of compliance and rebellion and exposes how familial affiliation impacted their lives as writers and particularly their choice of literary language."

Alberto Medina

"An important contribution to both the study of autobiography and bilingualism in post-Franco Spain. A richly detailed analysis of canonical and less known titles puts them in a new light where the politics of language become inseparable from family stories. Bilingual Legacies is essential reading about the intricacies of literary depictions of Spanish and Catalan linguistic identities."

Javier Krauel

"Through brilliant close readings, Bilingual Legacies tackles politically fraught issues of literary, linguistic, and gender subjectivity. It also reveals the centrality, as well as the potential lines of fracture, of the masculinist and patriarchal literary economy in which the authors operated. This is an important book, one that helps us better understand the linguistic and gender dynamics of contemporary literary discourses in Spain and Catalonia."

Editorial Reviews

"Through an illuminating reading of the autobiographical works of four major literary figures – Juan Goytisolo, Carlos Barral, Terenci Moix, and Clara Janés – Anna Casas Aguilar interrogates the complex interplay of compliance and rebellion and exposes how familial affiliation impacted their lives as writers and particularly their choice of literary language."

—Mario Santana, Associate Professor of Spanish Literature, University of Chicago

"Through brilliant close readings, Bilingual Legacies tackles politically fraught issues of literary, linguistic, and gender subjectivity. It also reveals the centrality, as well as the potential lines of fracture, of the masculinist and patriarchal literary economy in which the authors operated. This is an important book, one that helps us better understand the linguistic and gender dynamics of contemporary literary discourses in Spain and Catalonia."

—Javier Krauel, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Colorado at Boulder

"An important contribution to both the study of autobiography and bilingualism in post-Franco Spain. A richly detailed analysis of canonical and less known titles puts them in a new light where the politics of language become inseparable from family stories. Bilingual Legacies is essential reading about the intricacies of literary depictions of Spanish and Catalan linguistic identities."

—Alberto Medina, Professor of Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University

From the Publisher