Otherness, class and labor: Internal migration and emigration in four Spanish novels of late Francoism

Abstract

This article examines four Spanish novels published during the late Francoist period: La mina (1959), by Armando López Salinas; Ajena crece la yerba (1962), by Ramón Solís; Hemos perdido el sol (1963), by Ángel María de Lera; and Cacereño (1969), by Raúl Guerra Garrido. The selection of these novels is not arbitrary: whereas La mina and Cacereño portray internal migration within Spain, the other two depict the experience of Spanish migrants abroad. Nor is the period of their production incidental: the 1950s and 1960s witnessed one of the largest rural exoduses of the twentieth century. The article analyzes the literary construction of migrant subjects as figures of otherness within this sociohistorical context. To this end, it is structured around four analytical axes: (1) the reality of the Spanish countryside, (2) the obstacles inherent in the migratory process, (3) class difference, and (4) labor.