Resistance in the ‘Oppressor’s’ Tongue
English-Language Welsh Writers and Spanish-Language Catalan Writers
Author(s) Catriona Coutts
Language: English
Genre(s): Literary Criticism
Series: Writing Wales in English
- May 2026 · 264 pages ·216x138mm
- · Paperback - 9781837723423
- · eBook - pdf - 9781837723430
- · eBook - epub - 9781837723447
This volume presents a comparison of Welsh writing in English and Catalan writing in Spanish, and analyses the work of selected authors from each literature: Harri Webb, R. S. Thomas and Rhys Davies from Wales; Albert Sánchez Piñol and Eduardo Mendoza from Catalonia. From a resistance literature perspective, the author asks whether it is possible for a literature of national resistance to exist in a language that is not the national language. Traditionally, Welsh literature and Catalan literature have been defined as literatures written in Welsh or Catalan – while positions are shifting, the idea that there could be national resistance literature written in other languages remains novel. Resistance literature is not an approach previously applied to study either Welsh writing in English or Catalan writing in Spanish, and this book argues that the writings under consideration have produced varying degrees of ‘resistance literature’.
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Note on Terminology
Introduction
A Brief History of Wales and Catalonia
The Development of Resistance Literature Theory
Resistance Literature Approach
Resistance Theory in Wales and Catalonia
Types of Resistance
Choice of Author
Chapter 1 – Harri Webb and ‘The Saga of Welsh Resistance’
Introduction
Wales as a Colony
Resistance
Wales United
A Popular Poet
Recovering History
Chapter 2 – ‘The darker our twilight hours, the more blessed will be the dawn of those who will come after us’: Catalonia – the Nation that was and the State that will be
Introduction
Catalan National Traditions
Catalonia Versus Castile
Oppression of Catalans
A People’s Resistance
Chapter 3 – ‘Armed but not in the old way’: The Seeds of Hope in R. S. Thomas
Introduction
Wales and England in R. S. Thomas’s work
A Living Nation?
Speaking Truth to Power
What is a Welshman? – Resistance or Mere Invective?
Enclaves of Resistance
Chapter 4 – Recovering History, Recovering Writers - Eduardo Mendoza’s La Ciudad de los Prodigios and Rhys Davies’s Rhondda Trilogy
Introduction
The State of their Nations
Linking Struggles
Figures of Resistance
Historical Passages
Types of Resistance
Epilogue - A Growing Need for Resistance Literature?
Bibliography