Javier Marías and Camilo José Cela were for many years two of Spain’s foremost literary writers. They were also perhaps two of the country’s most renowned intellectuals. Yet, despite this shared status atop Spain’s literary and intellectual landscape, they despised one another. One was the son of an academic who had been ostracized for not pledging allegiance to Franco’s fascist creed. The other had been accused of collaborating with the same fascist regime. This talk explores the relationship between the two figures through their public and literary personae, arguing not only that it is impossible to understand their work in purely literary terms but also that they were practitioners of “op-ed novels,” that is, novels that attempted to directly intervene in the public affairs of their day.
This lecture will be given by Bécquer Seguín, Assistant Professor of Iberian Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
