La ficciÓn narrativa de Javier Cercas (1989-2009)

Abstract

This study will examine the aesthetics of narration of Spanish writer Javier Cercas through a detailed analysis of his narrative work. Even though these narratives are labeled as novels, they cannot be classified as such due to the metafictional components that are present in each of them. In addition to the destruction of traditional novelistic forms, the presence of these metafictional components further subverts traditional narrative discourse. If a broad definition of “discourse” is the way in which a story is told, then traditional discourse is that which seeks to tell the story in the most straightforward way possible. Through the intersecting relationships of metafiction and the use of autobiographic, journalistic and historiographic discourses, the narratives of Cercas show the careful reader the interesting direction that the contemporary Spanish novel is taking and the invaluable contributions of Cercas to the genre.