The Other Catalans : Representations of Immigration in Catalan Literature

Catalonia has for centuries been a destination for immigrants: first from neighbouring regions, then from all over Spain, and in the last twenty-five years from the whole world. Currently 16% of the Catalan population was born outside Spain, and well over 75% of Catalans have a migrant origin. Yet the Catalans see themselves as a distinct society, and a majority of them are making a claim for political self-determination. The Other Catalans is the first book to explore how Catalan literature has depicted the social and cultural consequences of immigration, from the 1930s to the present. It examines a rich body of texts in order to ask how immigration has shaped discourses of identity and otherness in Catalan culture, and how it has brought into question the claims to the authority to represent Catalan society; how the work of mourning is effected in migrant literature; how issues of language and space articulate with social and political conflict in these texts; and in what ways all these issues are inflected by gender and sexuality.

The first book to explore how Catalan literature has depicted the social and cultural consequences of immigration in the twentieth century.

Catalonia has for centuries been a destination for immigrants: first from neighboring regions, then from all over Spain, and in the last twenty-five years from the whole world. Currently, sixteen percent of the Catalan population was born outside Spain, and well over seventy-five percent of Catalans have a migrant origin. Yet the Catalans see themselves as a distinct society, and many of them are claiming political self-determination. 

Surveying the 1930s to the present, The Other Catalans provides a comprehensive examination of Catalan literature on immigration or by authors of migrant origin. It combines detailed readings of major texts with an awareness of the historical developments regarding immigration, providing readers with vital contextualization of migration and its literary representations. Covering both Catalan responses to immigration and literary accounts of the migrant experience, the book examines how immigration has shaped discourses of identity and otherness in Catalan culture; how the work of mourning is affected in migrant literature; how issues of language and space articulate with social and political conflict in these texts; and in what ways these issues are inflected by gender and sexuality.