On Thursday June the 16th at 6 p.m. the book ‘La querella de los novelistas. La lucha por la memoria en la literatura española (1990-2010)’ (Spanish for The novelists’ quarrel. The struggle for memory in Spanish literature) will be presented. The event is part of a research seminar entitled: 'La Tercera España: génesis y usos públicos de un concepto político (1936-2020)’ (Spanish for The Third Spain: genesis and public use of a political concept).

The book presentation, which will be held online (https://meet.google.com/wau-fdah-rpq), will have the participation of Zira Box, Sociology professor at the Universitat de València; Ricard Vinyes, Contemporary History full university professor at the University of Barcelona; Alfonso Botti, Contemporary History full university professor at the Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia; and Sara Santamaría, author of the book.

The configuration of the past, which is permanently in question, involves a political dispute that is never limited to the past, but also concerns the way in which we face the future. This book analyses the struggle to establish a hegemonic account of Spain’s recent history that took place between the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Spanish novelists played a very important role in it. The quarrel over the Spanish Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War and the post-war period led to a confrontation over the meaning of the Transition and its legacy. From an interdisciplinary perspective, combining –among others– cultural history and memory studies, these pages illuminate the intricacies of this struggle through the study of five prominent novelists. Juan Marsé, Rafael Chirbes, Almudena Grandes, Antonio Muñoz Molina and Javier Cercas.