Staking a Claim: Dispute, Displacement and Galician Identity in Marta Rivera de la Cruz’s Hotel Almirante (2002)

Abstract

This article interrogates the depiction of Galician identity in the Spanish-language novel Hotel Almirante (2002), by Marta Rivera de la Cruz, the Lugo-born writer, journalist and Ciudadanos politician whose role as a producer of Galician culture is widely contested owing not only to her linguistic practice, but also her dismissal of Galician nationalism and language policy. As might be expected, Rivera’s novel often tends towards a conservative, Spanish regionalist interpretation of her native culture that corresponds to her controversial public profile. Yet in spite of this, the writer stakes her claim to a Galician identity that challenges stereotypes in its treatment of issues of displacement, social mobility and female empowerment. It is argued that precisely because of her contentious politics, Rivera’s fiction must be confronted for the way in which it engages with, undermines and reconfigures contemporary understandings of Galician identity.