Description

• Title:
  Thinking through the city: La trabajadora by Elvira Navarro and Lectura fácil by Cristina Morales
• Creator:
  Potok, Magda
• Description:
  In so-called “crisis novels” that appeared in Spain following the economic collapse of 2008, the city comes to represent not only the scene of the explicit dramatic situations of the characters (poverty, precarity, unemployment, evictions, homelessness, occupy movement, street protests, or gaps in social services) but also the imagery of decay and conflict. The city comes across as an uncomfortable space, characterised by inhospitable peripheries and abandoned constructions, which is consonant with the sense of helplessness and extreme loneliness of the protagonists. However, in contrast to the paralysis and the nervous breakdown evident in La trabajadora (2014) by Elvira Navarro (alienating perspective), Cristina Morales’s Lectura fácil (2018) represents the urban space as a battlefield that leads to the awareness-raising and the politicization of the experience of a crisis (revolutionary perspective). Both novels, focused on “the right to housing”, come to reveal a great deal of indignation and protest against the neo-liberal policies and the contemporary capitalist city, responsible for exclusion and inequality. Their demands coincide with the political proposal of “the right to the city” (Lefebvre, 1968; Harvey 2013), which raises the possibility of living a worthy life in the city, with an equitable distribution of resources and respect for different sensitivities;
  In so-called “crisis novels” that appeared in Spain following the economic collapse of 2008, the city comes to represent not only the scene of the explicit dramatic situations of the characters (poverty, precarity, unemployment, evictions, homelessness, occupy movement, street protests, or gaps in social services) but also the imagery of decay and conflict. The city comes across as an uncomfortable space, characterised by inhospitable peripheries and abandoned constructions, which is consonant with the sense of helplessness and extreme loneliness of the protagonists. However, in contrast to the paralysis and the nervous breakdown evident in La trabajadora (2014) by Elvira Navarro (alienating perspective), Cristina Morales’s Lectura fácil (2018) represents the urban space as a battlefield that leads to the awareness-raising and the politicization of the experience of a crisis (revolutionary perspective). Both novels, focused on “the right to housing”, come to reveal a great deal of indignation and protest against the neo-liberal policies and the contemporary capitalist city, responsible for exclusion and inequality. Their demands coincide with the political proposal of “the right to the city” (Lefebvre, 1968; Harvey 2013), which raises the possibility of living a worthy life in the city, with an equitable distribution of resources and respect for different sensitivities.
• Object availability:
  free access
• Rights:
  Prawa autorskie (c) 2022 Magda Potok
• Date:
  2022.03.30
• Type:
  info:eu-repo/semantics/article;
  info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion;
  Artykuł naukowy
• Language:
  Spanish; Castilian
• Source:
  Studia Romanica Posnaniensia; Vol. 49 No. 1 (2022): Nuevos imaginarios urbanos en la narrativa hispanohablante contemporánea; 53-66;
  Studia Romanica Posnaniensia; Tom 49 Nr 1 (2022): Nuevos imaginarios urbanos en la narrativa hispanohablante contemporánea; 53-66;
  2084-4158;
  0137-2475
• Format:
  application/pdf
• Publisher:
  Adam Mickiewicz University Poznan
• Relation: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/srp/article/view/32012/27847
• Subject:
  contemporary Spanish fiction;
  women’s literature;
  politics & literature;
  crisis fiction;
  Cristina Morales;
  Elvira Navarro
• Identifier: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/srp/article/view/32012
• Data provider:
  Platforma Otwartych Czasopism Naukowych UAM
• Can I use it?:
  seek permission
• Type:
  text