Una mujer inconveniente. El compromiso feminista en la obra de Elvira Lindo

Abstract

If the fruits that provide us with nourishment are the ultimate transformation of a seed that we cultivate because of some shortage, this work is the result of a research that was born out of a question and a need: where is the figure of Elvira Lindo in the academic sphere? Although she is widely recognised on the literary scene for her tireless and enriching contribution to Spanish culture, why is it that she is not commonly found in university curricula? Perhaps until now no one has studied in depth such an eclectic and heterogeneous oeuvre as that of Elvira Lindo. A reconstruction of her biography, an indepth approach to her literature, her literary influences and her political and social concerns will allow us to get to know a writer who is much more than what is popularly known. The aim of this doctoral thesis is to analyse her contributions and recognise her figure through the study of a broad corpus in which various literary genres coexist: writings of the self, novels, texts of literary criticism and opinion articles. All of them selected according to one of the most outstanding issues of her work, her feminist commitment. For this reason, the point of view from which we start is that of feminist literary theory and criticism. Drawing on her theoretical assumptions, as well as the bibliography on narrative theory and autobiographical studies, we will analyse her self-referential texts and her five novels for adults, paying attention to the construction of the female characters as well as the male ones –an aspect in which we will have to follow in the wake of studies on masculinities– in search of the subversion of certain gender archetypes, the exploration of identities and the re-reading of experiences such as motherhood. We will also study a wide selection of critical and essayistic texts in which the writer uses features of journalistic, impressionist and feminist criticism to construct a genealogy of women from different parts of the world and from different historical periods. Finally, from a much more transversal gender perspective, because we will have to deal with questions from disciplines other than feminist literary criticism, we will look in detail at a sample of her journalistic production, where her feminist commitment is highlighted not only in the reflections on her own activism, but also in the analysis that, over the twenty years that she has been writing, she has made of her work, over the twenty years that comprise the selected corpus, she has carried out on the cultural and social world in which women in this and other parts of the world live, or in the much more political demands surrounding abortion, sexual freedom or real equality for LGTBI people, among other themes with which we close this approach to the hybrid work of Elvira Lindo.