City present in city past: Rafael Chirbes’ cartographic imaginary

Abstract

Abstract This article examines Rafael Chirbes’ 1994 novel Los disparos del cazador in relationship to important transformations of Madrid’s built environment from the 1940s to the middle of the 1990s. Using as a point of departure the groundbreaking work of the geographer David Harvey on the relationships between cultural production and urban process, this article offers a model for analysis that bridges the gap between the humanities and social sciences and in so doing offers a reading that demonstrates how Chirbes’ text weaves a message of resistance into the fabric of his novel about urban change.