La transición como traición: Rafael Chirbes y la coherencia crítica de un testigo

Abstract

This paper intends to examine the ideas behind the rebuttal of the Spanish transition to democracy carried out by Rafael Chirbes throughout his literary career. The aim is to tackle the different aspects that the characterization of this process as a long betrayal acquires in his writing; a betrayal which the author also inserted in the national historical tradition and pointed out critically from its development. In Chirbes’ historical interpretation, the transition to democracy, exerted by a part of his generation, was a betrayal to various sectors, ranging from the defeated of the same generation to the members of the previous one, the working class or the republican exile.