--- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Gonzalo Baeza" <gbaeza@...> wrote:
>
> Speaking of which, I'm reading a history of Spain's crime fiction and,
> just like you point out, their genre offerings in the first half of
> the 20th century were heavily influenced by France and, to a lesser
> extent, the British procedural. Fortunately, most of these is no
> longer true. It seems Spanish crime fiction is going through a very
> creative period with numerous new writers and titles. It'd be
> interesting to see if any of them are eventually translated.
>
This may have something to do with the growth of an "urban" culture
and sensibility. Also, with the abandonment of certain harmful ideas
about what good writing is. A classic problem in Spanish literature
has been explaining too much (obvious in much Spanish cinema to this
day), but I think younger generations are getting the hang of the
concise story and of creating suspense. Unfortunately, Catalan writer
Manual de Pedrolo, translator of hardboiled and noir writers in the
fifties and the author of several great noirs and quite a few
horrifying fantasies, has not had the influence he should have had in
Spain and elsewhere. The fact that his language is not understood (or
wanted) in the rest of Spain has a lot to do with it. What I see in
younger authors is an eclecticism and an openness that did not exist
before (Pedrolo and a few others excepted). We may see some real stars
come out of this generation.
Best,
mrt
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