Telling Stories in Contemporary Spain: A Survey of Women Writing Literary Journalism

Abstract

T he tradition of literary journalism in Spain stretches back to at least the nineteenth century, when Mariano Jose de Larra regularly wielded his often-biting satire to comment on current events and customs. Since then, male writers have tended to dominate Spanish journalism, particularly in the general-interest press. With the exception of a handful of nineteenth-century trailblazers, most women writers either wrote poetry, prose fiction, or participated in such nonfiction publications as fashion and home magazines until the early twentieth century. At that time, writers like Emilia Pardo Bazan and Margarita Nelken distinguished themselves as journalists and feminist activists. Although the early women’s movement was interrupted by the civil war (1936– 39) and experienced a long, oppressive hiatus under the authoritarian regime of Francisco Franco (1939–75), women’s voices began to appear in magazines and to be heard on the streets in the late 1960s, and became more present in public discourse after Franco’s death in November 1975. The death of the dictator, and with him the authoritarian regime that trained women to be good, Catholic wives and mothers, led to an unprecedented opening of Spanish culture and society, a quick and mostly nonviolent transition (1975–82) from authoritarian rule to a constitutional monarchy, and more rights for women. No longer subject to state censorship, print journalism played a prominent role in reflecting and shaping the changing society. It especially provided a medium through which women could participate in public discourse and begin to make their voices heard on issues as important as women’s rights, abuses in prisons, or labor struggles. Since this key moment in history for Spanish women, and for Spaniards in general, female journalists have continued to collaborate in general-interest periodicals as well as in specialized publications.1 Indeed, the first decade of the twenty-first century has seen an increase in the visibility of women journalists who contribute regularly to general-interest newspapers with regular columns, essays, special reports, in-depth interviews, and chronicles. Four of the more prominent female journalists who have been writing literary journalism throughout the last decade illustrate some important Telling Stories in Contemporary Spain: A Survey of Women Writing Literary Journalism