La poética del espacio andaluz. Una lectura de los libros de viajes de Alfonso Grosso y Juan Goytisolo en el sur de la Península Ibérica

Abstract

Between 1956 and 1962, Spanish writers Alfonso Grosso and Juan Goytisolo traveled extensively in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. As a result of these travels, Grosso published Por el río abajo (1960), and A poniente desde El Estrecho (1962); Goytisolo also published Campos de Níjar (1959), and, three years later, La Chanca (1962). These travelogues have been almost entirely read under the paradigm of social realism; through the conventions and norms of this literary movement, Grosso and Goytisolo’s travelogues have been interpreted as criticism of Franco’s military dictatorship arguing almost exclusively around the way these texts expose the poverty of a great sector of the Spanish population of the time, especially in the south of the country. This dissertation, however, contends that these texts are much more than that; Grosso and Goytisolo’s travelogues certainly include a criticism of the dictatorship, but, most importantly—since this is probably what made them survive the passing of time—they constitute a unique discussion on territorial inequalities within Spain, they provide valuable insights into the contemporary aspects of the Islamic past of the Iberian Peninsula, they offer an original analysis of the outcomes of the Civil War that goes way beyond poverty, as well as they tackle other relevant issues which are still important today. All this is done in these travelogues through a singular configuration of space, which is here conceived as a “poetics of space”. In dialogue with a set of pertinent ideas and theoretical speculations coming from different disciplines such as cultural geography, postcolonial theory, space theory, sociology, anthropology and philosophy, architecture and urbanism, this dissertation offers a critical reading of space in Grosso and Goytisolo’s travelogues in search of what they still have to reveal to us about the past, present, and future of Spain, and, particularly, about the history, culture and identity of the south of the country.