Memoria de la guerra civil y modernidad: El caso de El corazón helado de Almudena Grandes

Since the publication of Soldados de Salamina (2001) by Javier Cercas, Spain has seen a significant production of historical texts focusing mainly on the Civil War that are written as novels. These novels are based on facts, but the reader does not know how much is reality and how much fiction. From these pseudo-historical narrations, Spanish society is recovering and rediscovering a historical past that the democratic transition chose to keep hidden. In this essay, I analyse El corazón helado (2007), by Almudena Grandes, mainly focusing on the dialogue established between memory and history. This investigation seeks to demonstrate that this type of novel expresses a demand for ideological values that were silenced for 30 years but begin to emerge in Spanish society as a result of the consolidation of democracy and the basic structures of the constitutional monarchy. I believe Grandes' novel has a triple purpose: to subvert the historical meaning of the Spanish Civil War; to proclaim the need for Spanish society to speak about the war; and to eliminate the self-imposed restrictions that hinder the incorporation of this national conversation into the daily dialogue of a normal society.