The anxiety of the undocumented immigrant in the spanish juvenile novel

Abstract

For approximately three decades, the question of the phenomenon of immigration, particularly and tragically generated by its undocumented nature, occupies a paradoxically central and marginal place in contemporary Spanish literature. Central because it has served as fertile material for some writers, and marginal because it has been almost ignored by critics, in spite of the attempts of some authors who have portrayed and recounted this complex theme in their texts, by creating characters that support a rational speech, with arguments that discredit the official ideology based on a moralizing, denouncer and alarmist discourse. For this reason, starting in the mid-nineties, some twenty works of fiction arose about the massive arrival of undocumented immigrants in small boats, coming initially from North African countries, especially Morocco, because Spain had been taking off greatly and an economic boom that led to an increase in the standard of living of its citizens, thus becoming one of the favorite destinations for thousands of immigrants in search of an apparently 'better' world, going from being a country that historically emits emigrants to another that receives them. In this article, our main objective is to address the migration issue through two youth works The adventure of Saíd and Where are you, Ahmed? by Josep Lorman and Manuel Valls, respectively, who deal with racism and discrimination suffered by Moroccan immigrants in Spain, especially in the cities of Barcelona and Madrid, applying the critical discourse analysis approach developed by the prominent Netherlander linguist Teun Van Dijk.