The reclamation of national trauma and cultural memory in Spain through the translation of Uchronia by Marin, Vaquerizo, Negrete, And Eximeno

The Spanish Civil War, from 1936 until 1939, continues to inform not only the way Spaniards imagine themselves historically, but how they represent themselves contemporaneously, especially in creative works. The outcome of the war involved the installation of a fascist dictatorship led by Francisco Franco, one which extolled the virtues of Spanish tradition while violently suppressing resistant cultural voices. This suppression led to a lapse in cultural memory, one that compels Spanish authors to continue writing about this period and its aftermath.

In this translation, a selection of four Spanish authors (Rafael Marín, Eduardo Vaquerizo, Javier Negrete, and Santiago Eximeno) from the collection Franco. An Alternative History re-imagine the outcome of the war, utilizing the genre of alternative history. More particularly, these stories are examples of uchronia, which are concerned specifically with alternative timelines of the world in which we live. As the title suggests, this collection seeks to reclaim control over the reign of Franco, and to re-situate it in such a way that any lingering cultural trauma regarding the war might be explored and understood. While these authors are not survivors of the war themselves, the contemporary publication of these stories demonstrates the continued importance of this event in the Spanish cultural imagination.