ADELINA GURREA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SPANISH LITERATURE DURING FRANCO’S DICTATORSHIP

Abstract

This article focuses on the literary reception of Adelina Gurrea in Spain. The backdrop is the Spanish critical discourse on literature between 1943 and 1954. Gurrea’s book Cuentos de Juana was published in Spain at the end of 1943. The following year, Carmen Laforet won the Nadal prize with her celebrated novel Nada. In 1951, Gurrea’s book won the international prize awarded by the Union Latine in Paris. In 1954, Isabel Calvo included both writers in her Antología biográfica de escritoras españolas (Anthology and Biography of Spanish Women Writers). Spanish literary critics praised Gurrea’s work as a product of Spain, but highlighted her condition as a Philippine writer, wrapping their discourse on colonialism and Francoist national-Catholicism. I analyze the reviews published in Spain about Cuentos de Juana in order to understand how the Francoist discourse appropriated Gurrea’s work, alongside her actively engaging in displaying her Filipino identity. For this purpose, I employ two approaches. Firstly, I use language analysis techniques from the corpus linguistics discipline, using Voyant Tools software (2012). Secondly, I propose a discussion on the Spanish literary criticism during the postwar period, by looking at the literary critics and how their ideological setting framed their position with regards to Adelina Gurrea’s place in Spanish literature.