Subtitulo : Generational Becoming in the Narratives of Carme Riera, Cristina Fernández Cubas and Mercedes Abad

Description:
In Feminine Agency and Transgression in Post Franco Spain, Maria DiFrancesco explores three generations of Spanish fiction writers who emerged following the death of Francisco Franco (1892-1975). Freed of the strictures of state mandated censorship, these three women have pushed the limits of sexual and gender related discourse by relentlessly depicting controversial female agents in their narratives, from Sapphic lovers to monstrous mothers. What is most interesting about these authors is that they have gone beyond their initial revolutionary status to exhibit literary staying power, achieving canonical standing within their own lifetimes.

Dealing with the underlying theme common among their narratives - feminine agency and transgression as expressed in generational terms - DiFrancesco fills a gap in scholarship by exploring the ways in which female protagonists portrayed in works by Riera, Fernandez Cubas and Abad do not simply invert patriarchal paradigms of power but rather interrogate and destabilize isomorphic gendered categories that women have traditionally occupied. DiFrancesco dedicates one chapter to each author, analyzing the ways in which each rewrites the categories of «mother», «daughter», and «sister» in her narratives.

DiFrancesco ostensibly concludes that Riera, Fernandez Cubas and Abad have written a formidable body of literature that foregrounds female becoming as constantly negotiated. She suggests that, for each of these writers, being a female agent of transgression has little to do with the successes or failures of feminist political agendas and much more to do with an acknowledgment that categories which have defined women - «mother», «daughter», and «sister» - simply mark becomings that point to multi-dimensional forms of gender categorization. Riera, Fernandez Cubas and Abad thus maintain their popular status because they resist making categorical political statements about what is liberating and what is oppressive while uniquely shedding light on the ways women write their own stories, create their own mythos, and with it, their own locus of power.


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction….7

2. Carme Riera’s Fiction: Traces of Sapphic Love and the Case of the(Missing?) Erotic Mother….17

3. Cristina Fernandez Cubas: Girls, Women, and the Games they Play……73

4. Erotica or Monstrous Subtexts in Mercedes Abad’s Ligeros libertinajes sabaticos and Sangre….161

Conclusion….205

Bibliography…..211