The reception of the novel Patria and the memory of terrorism in Spain: coverage, treatment, and assessment in the national press and in the regional Basque press

Abstract

Fernando Aramburu’s novel Patria (Homeland in English) (2016), about terrorism in the Basque Country, has transcended fiction and has entered public opinion, becoming part of the conversation on current Spanish political and social affairs. Based on studies that relate journalism and memory, our aim is to offer a map of the reception of the novel in the national and regional Basque press, to examine to what extent there is a relationship between the coverage, treatment and assessment in the press and the territorial and ideological scope of the newspapers, in order to observe the contribution of the press to the collective memory of terrorism in Spain. The study was carried out on 167 journalistic pieces by means of a content analysis.