{"product_id":"the-op-ed-novel-a-literary-history-of-post-franco-spain-9780674260108","title":"The Op-Ed Novel: A Literary History of Post-Franco Spain","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eThe Op-Ed Novel\u003c\/i\u003e not only elegantly recounts a vital intellectual and cultural history of post-Franco Spain. Carefully exploring the careers of Spain's most eminent writers, it demonstrates, too, the osmotic links between political journalism and literary fiction--salutary reading in the English-speaking countries, where politics and literature are still regarded as strangers to each other.\"--Pankaj Mishra, author of \u003ci\u003eRun and Hide\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eA new history of contemporary Spanish fiction through the prism of novelists' newspaper columns.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePublic intellectuals come in many different stripes, but most of them gain a following at least in part from their writing, whether in the form of magazine articles, newspaper columns, or full-length nonfiction. A few--James Baldwin and Joan Didion are celebrated examples--start out as novelists before turning to the rough-and-tumble of current affairs. In \u003ci\u003eThe Op-Ed Novel\u003c\/i\u003e, Bécquer Seguín undertakes the first book-length study of how contemporary literature is shaped by opinion journalism, focusing on fiction writers who took to the papers in post-Franco Spain and became stewards of their country's cultural, economic, and political future. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFollowing Spain's transition to democracy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, internationally acclaimed novelists such as Javier Cercas, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Javier Marías seized the opportunity to populate the opinion pages of the newly legal free press. \u003ci\u003eThe Op-Ed Novel\u003c\/i\u003e analyzes how the argumentative styles and preoccupations of their columns in \u003ci\u003eEl País\u003c\/i\u003e, Spain's most widely read daily, bled into their fiction. These and other authors used their novels to settle scores with fellow intellectuals, make speculative historical claims, and advance partisan political projects. At the same time, their literary technique greatly invigorated opinion journalism. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA lively guide to the terroir of contemporary Spanish literature, \u003ci\u003eThe Op-Ed Novel\u003c\/i\u003e offers a bird's-eye view of both the post-Franco intellectual climate and the changing role of the novelist in public life.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Harvard University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50498250342674,"sku":"9780674260108","price":38.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ef938aa1-52d5-494c-b2c3-879d7dacebb9.jpg?v=1730729707","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-op-ed-novel-a-literary-history-of-post-franco-spain-9780674260108","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}