The novels of Álvaro Pombo: Registers of the sociopolitical history of contemporary Spain

Abstract

In 1977, two years after the death of the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, poet and novelist Álvaro Pombo returned to his native Spain from an 11-year exile in England. Finding himself excluded from his country's literary mainstream, Pombo struggled to find both an audience and a publisher for his poems, short stories, and novels. Through the years, as his production increased and he received more and more recognition for his efforts, his position on the literary margins began to shift. In 2004, after winning numerous awards and publishing 11 novels, two books of poetry, a collection of articles, and two collections of short stories, he became the newest member of Spain's Real Academia Española. Nearly 30 years after his homecoming, Álvaro Pombo has finally arrived, with his academy membership signaling his successful repositioning from the margins to the center of Spanish literary circles.

Pombo, however, was not the only Spaniard to experience exile during the Franco regime, nor was he the only citizen to experience marginalization from centers of power. Many of Spain's citizens experienced similar exclusions during the years of the dictatorship, the transition, and the new democracy. A study of Pombo's novels reveals that his characters often represent many such excluded individuals attempting to alter their marginalized status in Spanish society. Moreover, his novels serve as registers of the political and social changes occurring at the national level during the country's movement from economic and political isolation during the Franco regime toward full and democratic participation in the global economy of the 21st century. In my analysis of four of his novels, El parecido (1979), El héroe de las mansardas de Mansard (1983), Los delitos insignificantes (1986), and Telepena de Celia Cecilia Villalobo (1995), I explore how the power negotiations of Pombo's marginalized characters illuminate similar manipulations at the social and political level. Although nearly 20 years separate the publication of the four novels, there are connecting threads among the works. Through the telling of each story, Álvaro Pombo lends insight into Spain's historical development by imbedding its sociopolitical history within the pages of his novel.