Madres malas y literatura del exilio

Zusammenfassung

There is a common factor to several contemporary authors of Spanish origin but with a French expression, such as Agustín Gómez Arcos, Jorge Semprún or Michel del Castillo, which comes to a recurrent subject matter in their works. In nearly all of their works we can find out an «evil» woman and, to be more specific, the mother figure and the necessity they have to talk about it. What is the matter when that mother, true or symbolic, turns out to be evil by denying either her main duty —motherhood— or her social one? A stepmother also is the mother country that has expelled these writers —then war babies— from their lap. In their fiction these two realities are too close as not to be confused. Spain has become a stepmother to them, a cruel mother who sends them into exile and makes them deny their mother tongue.