Julia. An English Translation and Critical Edition. (Catalan Studies)

The troubled history of nineteenth century Alcoi, a textile center located about halfway between Valencia and Alicante, inland from Spain's eastern seaboard, and the struggles of Jlia Solbes, a young factory worker who marries her boss, collide violently in Isabel-Clara Sim's 1983 novel, Jlia. From the crash emerges a text that forces the reader to radically reinterpret Valencian, Catalan, and Spanish labor history, particularly as it had been previously told by Francoist historiographers, and at the same time to question sex roles in historical fictions of all description, as well as in external reality. The novel was first published in Catalan, but has since also appeared in Spanish translation. The date of publication of Jlia, 1983, is important because it marks the beginning of the Spanish Socialist government under Felipe Gonzlez. Thus, the novel emerged at a moment when significant works in all of the Iberian languages sought to retell history that had been warped through the forty years of Generalsimo Francisco Franco's dictatorship.