Tremendismo: The Bitter Taste of Life

Tremendismo is one of the most remarkable literary phenomena in 20th-century Spanish literature. It appeared on the literary scene with the emergence of the new Generation of '36, whose work marked the subsequent development of Spanish literature. Despite this, tremendismo is often regarded as a phenomenon of marginal significance. Since the 1990s, a certain revival of interest in this noteworthy literary phenomenon can be observed, primarily linked to the increased interest in the work of tremendismo's main representative, Camilo José Cela, especially after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989. At the same time, young authors from Generation X began to establish themselves, whose narrative prose bears distinct features of the tremendist aesthetic, to such an extent that one might consider a return of tremendismo. This publication is an attempt to make a small contribution to the aforementioned literary discussion, as it aims to find at least partial answers to questions of fundamental importance related to this issue.