One Country, Several Literatures: Towards a Comparative Understanding of Contemporary Literature in Spain

Very few scholarly efforts have been made to make comparative, collaborative readings of fiction written in the five official languages of Spain, even though it concerns, represents and is produced in a shared national reality. This article is an overview of the historical relations of the languages and literatures of Spain, on the basis of several questions: How did Castilian literature come to represent Spanish literature as a whole? What scholarly attempts have been made to break this monolingual paradigm? Could literary studies encompass literature written in the four co-official languages of Spain? The article concludes that a global understanding of contemporary letters in Spain demands a postmonolingual approach that breaks with previous literary, cultural, institutional and political conventions.