Sacred Realism

Religion and the Imagination in Modern Spanish Narrative

Maureen Valis Noel

In this thoughtful and compelling book, leading Spanish literature scholar Noel Valis re-examines the role of Catholicism in the modern Spanish novel. While other studies of fiction and faith have focused largely on religious themes, Sacred Realism views the religious impulse as a crisis of modernity: a fundamental catalyst in the creative and moral development of Spanish narrative. Thoroughly researched, multidimensional, and spanning three centuries of Spanish literature, "Sacred Realism" is certain to become a classic in its field.

About the Author

Noel Valis is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. A highly regarded scholar of Spanish literature and culture, Valis is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. She is the author of the award-winning book "The Culture of Cursileria: Bad Taste, Kitsch and Class in Modern Spain" and editor of "Teaching Representations of the Spanish Civil War".

Reviews

"[Valis] here produces her magnum opus (to date)... [She] persuasively exposes levels of imagination and belief that are common to religion and to art in general and to the realist novel in particular" – Patrick Madigan, Heythrop Journal

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