Andrés Pérez-Simón | Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (original) (raw)

Books by Andrés Pérez-Simón

Routledge, 2020

"Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage" defines Federico García Lorca’s traject... more "Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage" defines Federico García Lorca’s trajectory in the theater as a lifelong search for an audience. It studies a wide range of dramatic writings that Lorca created for the theater, in direct response to the conditions of his contemporary industry, and situates the theory and praxis of his theatrical reform in dialogue with other modernist renovators of the stage. This book makes special emphasis on how Lorca engaged with the tradition of Spanish Baroque, in particular with Cervantes and Calderón, to break away from the conventions of the illusionist stage. The five chapters of the book analyze Lorca’s different attempts to change the dynamics of the Spanish stage from 1920 to his assassination in 1936: His initial incursions in the arenas of symbolist and historical drama ("The Butterfly’s Evil Spell," "Mariana Pineda"); his interest in puppetry ("The Billy-Club Puppets" and "In the Frame of Don Cristóbal") and the two ‘human’ farces "The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife" and "The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden"; the central piece in his project of ‘impossible’ theater ("The Public"); his most explicitly political play, one that takes the violence to the spectators’ seats ("The Dream of Life"); and his three plays adopting, an altering, the contemporary formula of ‘rural drama’ ("Blood Wedding," "Yerma" and "The House of Bernarda Alba").

(English) My book questions traditional historiographical accounts based on clear-cut distinctio... more (English)

My book questions traditional historiographical accounts based on clear-cut distinction among literary and discursive genres to propose, instead, a more complex description of the converging lines among narrative, dramatic and philosophical texts in early-twentieth century Spain and Western Europe. Each of the three chapters is composed of a theoretical introduction, which establishes the methodological foundations of comparative inquiry, and two case studies. The first chapter, "Diálogo y escena dramática en la novela," examines a varied group of authors who adopted dramatic patterns (dialogue and descriptions resembling stage directions) as a way to achieve the ideal of an impersonal art in the years of transition from realism to modernism. Benito Pérez Galdós’ "novelas dialogadas" and James Joyce’s dramatic epiphanies are two examples of a practice also visible in the hybrid works of R. M. Valle-Inclán, among other contemporaries. In the second chapter, "Teatro y filosofía," I examine a corpus of dramatic works that evidence an uneasy yet fascinating relationship with philosophy very much in a Platonic fashion. The case studies are George Bernard Shaw and Miguel de Unamuno, two authors who saw theater as the perfect vehicle to embody their thought while also reshaping a tradition of philosophical dialogue that goes back to Plato. Finally, the third chapter, "El drama virtual," is concerned with a varied range of closet dramas that emerged as exuberant, dislocated narratives. In Gustave Flaubert’s final version of "La tentation de St. Antoine" and Joyce’s "Circe," a 200-page nightmare in "Ulysses," a multiplicity of characters colonize the imaginary stage of the modernist fragmented subjectivity.

(Español: texto de la contraportada)

Este volumen propone una nueva conceptualización de la historia de la literatura española y europea mediante el análisis histórico-teórico de tres campos de fuerzas de especial relevancia a finales del siglo xix y en las primeras décadas del xx: la novela dialogada, el teatro filosófico y el drama exuberante. A diferencia de la periodización adoptada por los críticos internacionales en el campo de los Modernist Studies, que abogan por una definición amplia de la idea de "modernismo" para reclamar a Flaubert y Baudelaire como primeros epítomes literarios del movimiento, el presente estudio describe tres líneas evolutivas perfectamente visibles durante todo el siglo xix. El capítulo central funciona como bisagra entre la vía minimalista representada por la novela dialogada y la vía centrífuga del drama exuberante. Las parejas de autores estudiados en profundidad en cada uno de los tres capítulos del libro, Galdós y Joyce; Unamuno y Shaw; Flaubert y de nuevo Joyce, exploran durante décadas los discursos literario, teatral y filosófico, un interés que cristaliza tanto en su obra literaria como en un amplio repertorio de reflexiones presentes en cartas, entrevistas y prólogos.

Papers by Andrés Pérez-Simón

Don Galán: revista de investigación teatral, 2020

Rilce-revista De Filologia Hispanica, 2021

Anagnórisis: Revista de investigación teatral, 2014

Teoría de la novela: pasado, presente y futuro, 2021, ISBN 978-84-1340-240-6, págs. 99-112, 2021

espanolEl presente ensayo estudia la teoria teatral desarrollada por Vsevolod Meyerhold en la pri... more espanolEl presente ensayo estudia la teoria teatral desarrollada por Vsevolod Meyerhold en la primera decada del siglo XX. Este articulo analiza la puesta en escena que Meyerhold hizo de La hermana Beatriz, de Maurice Maeterlinck, en 1906, y la compara con la produccion de El teatro de feria, de Alexander Blok, que tuvo lugar a finales de ese mismo ano y que represento la ruptura de Meyerhold con la estetica simbolista. Se considera el ensayo «El teatro de feria», publicado en 1912, como el texto de referencia para comprender la reforma teatral propuesta en estos anos por Meyerhod, reforma que gira en torno a dos ideas: exponer el caracter convencional del arte teatral y anular la distancia entre escena y espectadores. EnglishThis essay examines Vsevolod Meyerhold‘s theory of the stage in the first decade of the twentieth century. This article analyzes Meyerhold‘s symbolist staging of Maurice Maeterlinck‘s Sister Beatrice, in 1906, and compares it to his production of Alexander Blok...

In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillen fr... more In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillen from 1956 to 1992. I also review Guillen’s proposal for the Ph. D. Degree in Comparative Literature at UC San Diego, a 21-page document he submitted in 1968, three years after the first ACLA report, also known as the Levin report. In the first section of this essay I argue that their letters evidence the existence of diverging views, as early as the mid-1960s, on the nature of a discipline that had been recently institutionalized in the United States. I then look at how Guillen’s relationship to Levin changed significantly after Guillen abandoned Harvard to work in the Spanish public university system in the mid-1980s. In the third and final section I examine Guillen’s prologue to the second edition of Entre lo uno y lo diverso (2005), in which he described his Spanish experience as a failed attempt to spread comp lit in his country. This prologue was published only two years before Guille...

Fundamentos está orgullosa de contribuir con más del 0,7% de sus ingresos a paliar el desequilibr... more Fundamentos está orgullosa de contribuir con más del 0,7% de sus ingresos a paliar el desequilibrio frente a los Países en Vías de Desarrollo y a fomentar el respeto a los Derechos Humanos a través de diversas ONG. Este libro ha sido impreso en papel ecológico en cuya elaboración no se ha utilizado cloro gas.

"Teoría de la novela. Pasado, presente y futuro". Eds. Raquel Gutiérrez Sebastián et al. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza. 99-111. , 2021

"Teorías contemporáneas del arte y la literatura". Eds. Leopoldo La Rubia de Prado et al. Madrid: Tecnos, 2021. 315-332, 2021

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, 2020

Esta entrevista propone un diálogo con Ignacio García May, una de las figuras más activas del tea... more Esta entrevista propone un diálogo con Ignacio García May, una de las figuras más activas del teatro español contemporáneo. Sus dotes polifacéticas de escritor, director, adaptador, profesor e intelectual le han permitido ser observador privilegiado del mundo de la cultura teatral en España, en el cual también ha estado personalmente involucrado. En esta entrevista conversamos con García May sobre su larga trayectoria, desde el estreno de su primera obra en 1987 (Alesio, una comedia de tiempos pasados) hasta su más reciente colaboración en forma de traducción del libreto del musical de Broadway A Chorus Line para Antonio Banderas. García May nos habla además, sin miedo a lo políticamente incorrecto, sobre los intereses políticos y económicos detrás de la industria teatral española de hoy.

García May, Ignacio; teatro español contemporáneo; teatro del Siglo de Oro; dramaturgia; adaptación

Anagnórisis, 2019

This essay examines Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory of the stage in the first decade of the twentieth... more This essay examines Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory of the stage in the first decade of the twentieth century. This article analyzes Meyerhold's symbolist staging of Maurice Maeterlinck's "Sister Beatrice", in 1906, and compares it to his production of Alexander Blok's "The Fairground Booth" later that year, which constituted a break with symbolist aesthetics. Meyerhold's essay "The Fairground Booth", published in 1912, is considered the main theoretical text to understand his project of theatrical reform, one that revolved around the ideas of exposing the conventionality of theatrical art and bridging the gap between stage and audience.

PMLA, 2019

First English translation ever of a fragment of Otakar Zich's "Aesthetics of Dramatic Art" (1931).

"The Challenge of Modernity: Avant-Garde Cultural Practices in Spain (1914-1936)." Eds. Eduardo Gregori and Juan Herrero-Senés. Amsterdam: Brill, 2016. 35-46.

In this essay I situate the work of James Joyce in a cluster of discussions in Spain heavily infl... more In this essay I situate the work of James Joyce in a cluster of discussions in Spain heavily influenced by the notion of the ‘Arte Nuevo’ that José Ortega y Gasset developed in "La deshumanización del arte" and "Ideas de la novela" (1925). My aim is to reconcile Joyce’s enormous influence on European letters after the publication of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916) and especially "Ulysses" (1922), on the one hand, and his minimal presence in the critical panorama of mid-1920s Spain dominated by Ortega and the group of authors involved in Revista de Occidente (most notably, Benjamín Jarnés and Antonio Espina), on the other. I also discuss how two journals, Nós and La Gaceta Literaria, enlisted Joyce in such causes as the normativization of Galician language and the questioning of bourgeois taboos, respectively. Their investment in the Irish author was so great that in 1927 the two journals rivaled each other for the honor of having published the first translated excerpts of "Ulysses" in Spain.

1616: Anuario de literatura comparada 4 (2014): 295-312

In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillén fr... more In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillén from 1956 to 1992. I also review Guillén’s proposal for the Ph. D. Degree in Comparative Literature at UC San Diego, a 21-page document he submitted in 1968, three years after the first ACLA report, also known as the Levin report. In the first section of this essay I argue that their letters evidence the existence of diverging views, as early as the mid-1960s, on the nature of a discipline that had been recently institutionalized in the United States. I then look at how Guillén’s relationship to Levin changed significantly after Guillén abandoned Harvard to work in the Spanish public university system in the mid-1980s. In the third and final section I examine Guillén’s prologue to the second edition of Entre lo uno y lo diverso (2005), in which he described his Spanish experience as a failed attempt to spread comp lit in his country. This prologue was published only two years before Guillén passed away in 2007.

Routledge, 2020

"Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage" defines Federico García Lorca’s traject... more "Baroque Lorca: An Archaist Playwright for the New Stage" defines Federico García Lorca’s trajectory in the theater as a lifelong search for an audience. It studies a wide range of dramatic writings that Lorca created for the theater, in direct response to the conditions of his contemporary industry, and situates the theory and praxis of his theatrical reform in dialogue with other modernist renovators of the stage. This book makes special emphasis on how Lorca engaged with the tradition of Spanish Baroque, in particular with Cervantes and Calderón, to break away from the conventions of the illusionist stage. The five chapters of the book analyze Lorca’s different attempts to change the dynamics of the Spanish stage from 1920 to his assassination in 1936: His initial incursions in the arenas of symbolist and historical drama ("The Butterfly’s Evil Spell," "Mariana Pineda"); his interest in puppetry ("The Billy-Club Puppets" and "In the Frame of Don Cristóbal") and the two ‘human’ farces "The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife" and "The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden"; the central piece in his project of ‘impossible’ theater ("The Public"); his most explicitly political play, one that takes the violence to the spectators’ seats ("The Dream of Life"); and his three plays adopting, an altering, the contemporary formula of ‘rural drama’ ("Blood Wedding," "Yerma" and "The House of Bernarda Alba").

(English) My book questions traditional historiographical accounts based on clear-cut distinctio... more (English)

My book questions traditional historiographical accounts based on clear-cut distinction among literary and discursive genres to propose, instead, a more complex description of the converging lines among narrative, dramatic and philosophical texts in early-twentieth century Spain and Western Europe. Each of the three chapters is composed of a theoretical introduction, which establishes the methodological foundations of comparative inquiry, and two case studies. The first chapter, "Diálogo y escena dramática en la novela," examines a varied group of authors who adopted dramatic patterns (dialogue and descriptions resembling stage directions) as a way to achieve the ideal of an impersonal art in the years of transition from realism to modernism. Benito Pérez Galdós’ "novelas dialogadas" and James Joyce’s dramatic epiphanies are two examples of a practice also visible in the hybrid works of R. M. Valle-Inclán, among other contemporaries. In the second chapter, "Teatro y filosofía," I examine a corpus of dramatic works that evidence an uneasy yet fascinating relationship with philosophy very much in a Platonic fashion. The case studies are George Bernard Shaw and Miguel de Unamuno, two authors who saw theater as the perfect vehicle to embody their thought while also reshaping a tradition of philosophical dialogue that goes back to Plato. Finally, the third chapter, "El drama virtual," is concerned with a varied range of closet dramas that emerged as exuberant, dislocated narratives. In Gustave Flaubert’s final version of "La tentation de St. Antoine" and Joyce’s "Circe," a 200-page nightmare in "Ulysses," a multiplicity of characters colonize the imaginary stage of the modernist fragmented subjectivity.

(Español: texto de la contraportada)

Este volumen propone una nueva conceptualización de la historia de la literatura española y europea mediante el análisis histórico-teórico de tres campos de fuerzas de especial relevancia a finales del siglo xix y en las primeras décadas del xx: la novela dialogada, el teatro filosófico y el drama exuberante. A diferencia de la periodización adoptada por los críticos internacionales en el campo de los Modernist Studies, que abogan por una definición amplia de la idea de "modernismo" para reclamar a Flaubert y Baudelaire como primeros epítomes literarios del movimiento, el presente estudio describe tres líneas evolutivas perfectamente visibles durante todo el siglo xix. El capítulo central funciona como bisagra entre la vía minimalista representada por la novela dialogada y la vía centrífuga del drama exuberante. Las parejas de autores estudiados en profundidad en cada uno de los tres capítulos del libro, Galdós y Joyce; Unamuno y Shaw; Flaubert y de nuevo Joyce, exploran durante décadas los discursos literario, teatral y filosófico, un interés que cristaliza tanto en su obra literaria como en un amplio repertorio de reflexiones presentes en cartas, entrevistas y prólogos.

Don Galán: revista de investigación teatral, 2020

Rilce-revista De Filologia Hispanica, 2021

Anagnórisis: Revista de investigación teatral, 2014

Teoría de la novela: pasado, presente y futuro, 2021, ISBN 978-84-1340-240-6, págs. 99-112, 2021

espanolEl presente ensayo estudia la teoria teatral desarrollada por Vsevolod Meyerhold en la pri... more espanolEl presente ensayo estudia la teoria teatral desarrollada por Vsevolod Meyerhold en la primera decada del siglo XX. Este articulo analiza la puesta en escena que Meyerhold hizo de La hermana Beatriz, de Maurice Maeterlinck, en 1906, y la compara con la produccion de El teatro de feria, de Alexander Blok, que tuvo lugar a finales de ese mismo ano y que represento la ruptura de Meyerhold con la estetica simbolista. Se considera el ensayo «El teatro de feria», publicado en 1912, como el texto de referencia para comprender la reforma teatral propuesta en estos anos por Meyerhod, reforma que gira en torno a dos ideas: exponer el caracter convencional del arte teatral y anular la distancia entre escena y espectadores. EnglishThis essay examines Vsevolod Meyerhold‘s theory of the stage in the first decade of the twentieth century. This article analyzes Meyerhold‘s symbolist staging of Maurice Maeterlinck‘s Sister Beatrice, in 1906, and compares it to his production of Alexander Blok...

In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillen fr... more In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillen from 1956 to 1992. I also review Guillen’s proposal for the Ph. D. Degree in Comparative Literature at UC San Diego, a 21-page document he submitted in 1968, three years after the first ACLA report, also known as the Levin report. In the first section of this essay I argue that their letters evidence the existence of diverging views, as early as the mid-1960s, on the nature of a discipline that had been recently institutionalized in the United States. I then look at how Guillen’s relationship to Levin changed significantly after Guillen abandoned Harvard to work in the Spanish public university system in the mid-1980s. In the third and final section I examine Guillen’s prologue to the second edition of Entre lo uno y lo diverso (2005), in which he described his Spanish experience as a failed attempt to spread comp lit in his country. This prologue was published only two years before Guille...

Fundamentos está orgullosa de contribuir con más del 0,7% de sus ingresos a paliar el desequilibr... more Fundamentos está orgullosa de contribuir con más del 0,7% de sus ingresos a paliar el desequilibrio frente a los Países en Vías de Desarrollo y a fomentar el respeto a los Derechos Humanos a través de diversas ONG. Este libro ha sido impreso en papel ecológico en cuya elaboración no se ha utilizado cloro gas.

"Teoría de la novela. Pasado, presente y futuro". Eds. Raquel Gutiérrez Sebastián et al. Zaragoza: Prensas de la Universidad de Zaragoza. 99-111. , 2021

"Teorías contemporáneas del arte y la literatura". Eds. Leopoldo La Rubia de Prado et al. Madrid: Tecnos, 2021. 315-332, 2021

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, 2020

Esta entrevista propone un diálogo con Ignacio García May, una de las figuras más activas del tea... more Esta entrevista propone un diálogo con Ignacio García May, una de las figuras más activas del teatro español contemporáneo. Sus dotes polifacéticas de escritor, director, adaptador, profesor e intelectual le han permitido ser observador privilegiado del mundo de la cultura teatral en España, en el cual también ha estado personalmente involucrado. En esta entrevista conversamos con García May sobre su larga trayectoria, desde el estreno de su primera obra en 1987 (Alesio, una comedia de tiempos pasados) hasta su más reciente colaboración en forma de traducción del libreto del musical de Broadway A Chorus Line para Antonio Banderas. García May nos habla además, sin miedo a lo políticamente incorrecto, sobre los intereses políticos y económicos detrás de la industria teatral española de hoy.

García May, Ignacio; teatro español contemporáneo; teatro del Siglo de Oro; dramaturgia; adaptación

Anagnórisis, 2019

This essay examines Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory of the stage in the first decade of the twentieth... more This essay examines Vsevolod Meyerhold's theory of the stage in the first decade of the twentieth century. This article analyzes Meyerhold's symbolist staging of Maurice Maeterlinck's "Sister Beatrice", in 1906, and compares it to his production of Alexander Blok's "The Fairground Booth" later that year, which constituted a break with symbolist aesthetics. Meyerhold's essay "The Fairground Booth", published in 1912, is considered the main theoretical text to understand his project of theatrical reform, one that revolved around the ideas of exposing the conventionality of theatrical art and bridging the gap between stage and audience.

PMLA, 2019

First English translation ever of a fragment of Otakar Zich's "Aesthetics of Dramatic Art" (1931).

"The Challenge of Modernity: Avant-Garde Cultural Practices in Spain (1914-1936)." Eds. Eduardo Gregori and Juan Herrero-Senés. Amsterdam: Brill, 2016. 35-46.

In this essay I situate the work of James Joyce in a cluster of discussions in Spain heavily infl... more In this essay I situate the work of James Joyce in a cluster of discussions in Spain heavily influenced by the notion of the ‘Arte Nuevo’ that José Ortega y Gasset developed in "La deshumanización del arte" and "Ideas de la novela" (1925). My aim is to reconcile Joyce’s enormous influence on European letters after the publication of "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916) and especially "Ulysses" (1922), on the one hand, and his minimal presence in the critical panorama of mid-1920s Spain dominated by Ortega and the group of authors involved in Revista de Occidente (most notably, Benjamín Jarnés and Antonio Espina), on the other. I also discuss how two journals, Nós and La Gaceta Literaria, enlisted Joyce in such causes as the normativization of Galician language and the questioning of bourgeois taboos, respectively. Their investment in the Irish author was so great that in 1927 the two journals rivaled each other for the honor of having published the first translated excerpts of "Ulysses" in Spain.

1616: Anuario de literatura comparada 4 (2014): 295-312

In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillén fr... more In this essay I examine the unpublished correspondence between Harry Levin and Claudio Guillén from 1956 to 1992. I also review Guillén’s proposal for the Ph. D. Degree in Comparative Literature at UC San Diego, a 21-page document he submitted in 1968, three years after the first ACLA report, also known as the Levin report. In the first section of this essay I argue that their letters evidence the existence of diverging views, as early as the mid-1960s, on the nature of a discipline that had been recently institutionalized in the United States. I then look at how Guillén’s relationship to Levin changed significantly after Guillén abandoned Harvard to work in the Spanish public university system in the mid-1980s. In the third and final section I examine Guillén’s prologue to the second edition of Entre lo uno y lo diverso (2005), in which he described his Spanish experience as a failed attempt to spread comp lit in his country. This prologue was published only two years before Guillén passed away in 2007.

Theatralia 17.2 (2014): 50-59.

(click on the Open Humanities Press link below)

In this essay I first review the concepts of “stage figure” and “acting celebrity” as developed b... more In this essay I first review the concepts of “stage figure” and “acting celebrity” as developed by Otakar Zich (and later, Jiři Veltruský) and Michael Quinn, respectively. I then propose the new term “anonymous acting celebrity.” The concept of "herecká postava" (literally “figure of the actor,” but frequently translated to English as “stage figure”) was formulated by Zich, who coined the concept of “stage figure” in his "Aesthetics of Dramatic Art" (1931), and Veltruský first approached this idea in 1940 in his essay “Man and Object in the Theatre.” In the 1970s, Veltruský also authored a rich corpus of essays that contained multiple references to the concept of stage figure. In his 1989 essay “Celebrity and the Semiotics of Acting,” Michael Quinn adopted Veltruský’s terminology in order to show to what extent the presence of charismatic actors may considerably affect the reception of a play – no matter the artistic plans of authors and/or directors. To illustrate my idea of the anonymous acting celebrity, I discuss a recent production of Federico García Lorca’s "The House of Bernarda Alba" by the Seville-based theatre group Atalaya. For this project, the director Pepa Gamboa recruited a group of local gypsy women who had no previous acting training. To explain the ‘authenticity’ effect of Atalaya’s "The House of Bernarda Alba," I develop the notion of “anonymous acting celebrity” as a way to uncover the numerous pragmatic implications that surrounded the collective reception of this production.

Rilce, 2021

Review (in Spanish) of: Luis Beltrán Almería's edition of: 1) Lukács, György. La novela: destinos... more Review (in Spanish) of: Luis Beltrán Almería's edition of: 1) Lukács, György. La novela: destinos de la teoría de la novela; 2) Bajtín, Mijail. "La novela como género literario".

RILCE 37.2 (2021): 882-885.

- Reseña de Laeticia Rovecchio Antón. En Anagnórisis 12 (Dic. 2015): 282-287. - Reseña de Juan Ca... more - Reseña de Laeticia Rovecchio Antón. En Anagnórisis 12 (Dic. 2015): 282-287.
- Reseña de Juan Carlos Pueo. En Tropelías 25 (2016): 373-375.
- Reseña de Asunción López-Varela. En Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 38.1-2 (2015): 132-135.
- Reseña de Bernat Padró Nieto. En 452ºF. Revista de Teoría de la literatura y Literatura Comparada 15 (2016): 259-260.

Revista de estudios hispánicos, 2017

En El pacto ambiguo: De la novela autobiográfica a la autoficción , Manuel Alberca estudia un con... more En El pacto ambiguo: De la novela autobiográfica a la autoficción , Manuel Alberca estudia un conjunto de recientes narraciones españolas (junto con algunas hispanoamericanas) que se caracterizan por la identidad explícita de autor, narrador y personaje -identidad visible al aparecer el mismo nombre propio en el texto y en el paratexto. Alberca se propone contribuir a una mejor "comprensión del desigual proceso de recuperación del autor en la literatura española de las últimas décadas. Una recuperación que se presenta bajo una forma sin duda contradictoria, pues alterna la exaltación de éste, omnipresente en sus obras, con el vaciamiento del significado de dicha figura" (31). Señala Alberca que la profusión de autoficciones en la España reciente está en consonancia con el auge de la literatura autobiográfica en Europa desde finales de los setenta. El título de El pacto ambiguo para este estudio es, como habrá ya notado el lector, una clara referencia al concepto de "pacto autobiográfico" desarrollado por Philippe Lejeune. Respecto al concepto de autoficción, Alberca toma como punto de partida el neologismo acuñado por el profesor y novelista francés Serge Doubrovsky en su novela Fils (1977). Aunque la autoficción emerge sobre todo en España durante en los años de la democracia, Alberca reconoce la existencia de importantes precedentes en las letras españolas del siglo XX como Niebla, de Miguel de Unamuno, y La forja de un rebelde, de Arturo Barea. Alberca se propone profundizar en la existencia de "un modelo genérico dinámico, unas posibilidades creativas y unas expectativas lectores en formación, pues los autores, editores y lectores españoles no las han aceptado plenamente todavía" (163).