Eastern European Immigrants in the Spanish Crisis Novel: Crematorio by Rafael Chirbes and La carne by Rosa Montero

Abstract

Crematorio by Rafael Chirbes (2007) and La carne by Rosa Montero (2016) belong to the expanding genre of the Spanish crisis novel that arose in response to the global economic crisis of 2007–2009. The novels’ protagonists realize that neoliberalism is eroding the institutions associated with the welfare state model. These characters attempt to exorcise the anxieties that the crisis awakens in them by projecting them onto Eastern European immigrants, whom they associate with the depredations of savage capitalism in their countries of origin. Rather than casualties of globalization, immigrants are seen as emissaries of the new economic order that fosters fluidity and rootlessness, and are blamed for the hardship created by the structures of exploitation that are implicit within late capitalism.