Redemptive Children and Historical Memory: Luis Mateo Diez's La gloria de los ninos (2007)

This article explores contemporary Spanish writer Luis Mateo Diez's 2007 novel, La gloria de los ninos, focusing on the construction of a redemptive child who mends the broken world and keeps alive historical memory. The author looks beyond one single nation state in his reconstruction of children and childhood under the Franco regime. Hidden behind his approach to the reconstruction of the 'glorious children' under Franco emerges, on the one hand, his dissolution of any authoritative version of Franco-era children and, on the other, his broader vision and desire to examine Spain and Spanish historical memory in a global context.