Gender, language and nationfemale and androgynous selves in Montserrat Roig's last novels
- Glenn, Kathleen M. (ed. lit.)
- McNerney, Kathleen (ed. lit.)
ISSN: 0925-8620
Year of publication: 2008
Issue Title: Visions and revisions. Women's narrative in twentieth-century Spain
Issue: 31
Pages: 55-73
Type: Article
More publications in: Foro hispánico: revista hispánica de Flandes y Holanda
Abstract
The narrative fiction of Montserrat Roig, one of the most popular contemporary Catalan writers, is based on gender, nation and language coordinates for the construction of her female characters' selves. In their quest for self-acceptance and fulfilment, the women of Roig's novels often look back to origins and the maternal legacy as a source for self-creation and identification. Catalan, consciously chosen as a literary language, is not only Roig's mother tongue but a nationality, and it also represents her city, Barcelona. Catalan language and literature, located in this precise geographical place, create the symbolic sphere where her characters root themselves.