Feminismo e innovación en la narrativa gallega de autoría femenina: Xohana Torres, María Xosé Queizán, Carmen Blanco y Teresa Moure

Abstract

This study examines the importance and impact of the literary careers and works of four Galician women writers from two different generations within specific cultural and historical contexts: the last years of the Franco regime and Spain's ensuing democracy. Its purpose is to unravel the way in which their corpus, from deeply seated feminist convictions, contributes to the renovation of the genre of narrative. This genre has always been characterized in Galicia by its slow and anomalous development, given that there are very few female narrative writers until the 1980s. However, as will be seen, the evolution of the genre will bear fruit in a qualitative and quantitative increase in female narrative writers in the new millennium. The first generation consists of Xohana Torres (Santiago de Compostela, 1931-) and María Xosé Queizán (Vigo, 1939-), who begin to publish under the Franco regime. The second is that composed by Carmen Blanco (Lugo, 1954-) and Teresa Moure (c. 1969-), who initiate their literary careers in the democratic period, publishing their narrative works from 2004 onwards. An analysis of their narrative production will reveal how innovative and original it was at the time of publication. This innovation is evident in different aspects, such as the introduction of subversive themes and characters, original structures or the use of other literary genres, such as the fairy tale and feminized quest romance. I will examine how Torres, who publishes her only novel in 1971, articulates a strong critique of Francoism and its basic tenets through her adolescent protagonist, Maxa, to reclaim a rural Galicia destroyed by capitalist exploitation. In Queizán's novels, controversial themes, such as motherhood, paedophilia and alternative sexualities, have led to the silencing of her works. As for Blanco's texts, they rewrite traditional fairy tales to effect a penetrating analysis of Galicia, reviewing its past and present. Such recreations proclaim the deep yearning for a libertarian dream in which Galicia might be an egalitarian place for all men and women. Finally, Moure's narrative defends the 'nature' of women, in keeping with her ecofeminist stance. For all these feminist writers, the equation of women with an autonomous Galicia is the fundamental thread woven through the entirety of their work.