Resilient Stereotypes in Recent Crisis Novels from Spain

Abstract

After the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2008, the hegemony of the politics of financial debt was largely perceived in Southern Europe as an internal colonisation, with Germany as the leading economic power. According to this view, Southern Europe became the trial ground for neoliberal late capitalism. The unequal impact of the crisis on the different European economies resulted in the unwelcome reactivation of old stereotypes that hinder the European process towards transnational economic, social and cultural convergence. This contribution considers fiction as a privileged space for the nuanced representation of the complexities characterising the current moment of European liquid modernity and presents the novel as an important arena for critical reflection. It discusses a selection of recently published novels from Spain, which, set in the aftermath of the construction boom and the unveiling of systemic corruption, register the multiple negative consequences of the European austerity policies and grapple with the resurfacing of the stereotypical constructs of national identities through humour, satire, and social and political critique. Among the authors considered are Almudena Grandes, Germán Gullón, Rafael Chirbes, Luis García Jambrina, and Belén Gopegui.