Historical Debt and Cultural Capital in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Spanish Narrative

Susan M. Divine delves beyond the historical fiction model to look at how different genres and generations of contemporary artists take on the concerns of memory, nostalgia, tradition, trauma, and cultural inheritance.

Spanning across twenty-five years of historical fiction in Spain, Divine combines urban theory, cultural studies, urban theory, cultural studies, feminist scholarship, and genre studies to evaluate the "memory boom" of media about the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. The author argues that both the literal and the figurative sense of debt-- the loss of life, culture, and potential-- has been repaid by using Spain’s history as “exchange value” on an open market. The idea of history and historical injustice as “capital” to repay the very debt they reference poses a series of interesting ethical questions and dilemmas. Through this study, the author evaluates narratives that explore this historical debt and cultural capital, taking note of how artists choose to engage or evade these questions.