Around the turn of 21st Century, Spain welcomed more than six million foreigners, many of them from various parts of the African continent. How African immigrants represent themselves and are represented in contemporary Spanish texts is the subject of this interdisciplinary collection. Analyzing blogs, films, translations, and literary works by contemporary authors including Donato Ndongo (Ecquatorial Guinea), Abderrahman El Fathi (Morocco), Chus GutiA(c)rrez (Spain), Juan Bonilla (Spain), and Bahia Mahmud Awah (Western Sahara), the contributors interrogate how Spanish cultural texts represent, idealize, or sympathize with the plight of immigrants, as well as the ways in which immigrants themselves represent Spain and Spanish culture. At the same time, these works shed light on issues related to Spaina (TM)s racial, ethnic, and sexual boundaries; the appeal of images of Africa in the contemporary marketplace; and the role of Spaina (TM)s economic crisis in shaping attitudes towards immigration. Taken together, the essays are a convincing reminder that cultural texts provide a mirror into the perceptions of a society during times of change.
Contents: Foreword: Empathy, ambivalence, and the movement of critique: a prologue, Brad Epps; Introduction: Representations of Africa in 21st-century Spain: literatures and cultures crossing the Strait, Debra Faszer-McMahon and Victoria L. Ketz; Mediated moralities of immigration: metaphysical detection in Marta Sanz's Black, black, black, Shanna Lino; What happens on the other side of the Strai(gh)t? Clandestine migrations and queer racialized desire in Juan Bonilla's neopicaresque novel Los principes nubios (2003), Gema Perez-Sanchez; Alienation in the 'promised land': voices of Maghrebi women in the theater of Antonia Bueno, Victoria L. Ketz; Searching for justice in Return to Hansala by Chus Gutierrez: cultural encounters between Africa and Europe, Ana Corbalan; Celebrity, diplomacy, documentary: Javier Bardem and Sons of the Clouds: The Last Colony, Jill Robbins; Tales of two shores: the re-establishment of dialogue across the Strait of Gibraltar, Raquel Vega-Duran; Parejas Mixtas: African-Spanish couples in cyberspace, Kathleen Honora Connolly; Oikos and the 'other': humanizing the immigrant in Donato Ndongo's El metro, Mahan L. Ellison; Ekomo's interventions, Benita Sampedro Vizcaya; Unveiling Spain: representation of the female body as a metaphor for contesting orientalist ideology, David N. Coury and Cristina Ortiz Ceberio; Grave politics: fighting ventriloquism in the Maghreb, Brian Bobbitt; African poetics in Spain: Um Draiga and the voices of contemporary Saharawi poetry, Debra Faszer-McMahon; Abderrahman El Fathi: an Averroist perspective of his poetry, Cristian H. Ricci; Appendix; Index.
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