Catherine Bourland Ross – Författare

This book investigates the perceptions of motherhood in Spanish author Lucía Etxebarria’s fiction and offers views of the importance of motherhood in society. Traditional expectations for women as mothers persist despite the fact that they no longer match Spain’s cultural and economic reality. These issues of gender equality and societal perceptions stand out in the novels and screenplays of Etxebarria. Her work at times resists and at times affirms patriarchal constructs associated with traditional Spanish motherhood, and ultimately, I argue, enacts the very complexity of contemporary Spanish motherhood ideals. By showing the tension between the past constructs of the mother and the possible future outcomes of gender equality, Etxebarria’s works navigate the complexity between past and future, illuminating the current and future uncertainties and the ambivalent nature of change. Each chapter views motherhood from a different perspective and focuses on particular works of Etxebarria. Through the depiction of a variety of mother characters, these different perspectives, as showcased in Etxebarria’s narratives, together compose an understanding of Spanish maternal identity.

The drop in Spanish birth rates in 1998 to their lowest level of 1.1 births per woman was accompanied by a boom in publishing about motherhood. New narrative forms, ranging from blogs to diaries to comics, expressed women’s experiences, including ambivalence about motherhood in the face of societal pressures. Narrating Infertility in Spain, the first study of infertility in post-2008 female-authored texts, analyzes discussions of adoption, assisted reproduction, egg and sperm donation, and the decision not to have children due to economic or social instability. By examining the work of writers and vocal activists Silvia Nanclares, Raquel SÁnchez-Silva, Samantha Villar, Laura Freixas, and Diana LÓpez Varela, Bourland Ross situates infertility in Spain within the cultural context of the Great Recession, while considering it as a business, a crisis, a stigma, and a class issue, and offering broader understandings of contemporary fertility challenges in Spain and beyond.Published by Bucknell University Press. Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press.