From novel to film: Soldados de Salamina and the paradox of the faithful betrayal

Abstract

The Historical Memory (‘memoria histórica’) of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), one of the main topic of the post-Franquism literature, is often related to the internalization of the conflict through intimism  and a consequent investigation based on remembrance. ‘Nueva novela histórica’ and ‘metaficción’ are the two literary genres adopted by the Spanish generation of writers following the Civil War to offer a new perspective of the conflict, suggesting it again not only as the subject of their works, but also as the pretext needed to activate the plot.
Soldados de Salamina (2001) by Javier Cercas, bestseller in Spain, is a metafictional novel where the Spanish Civil War drifts through the air and where the heavy past is connected to the present by the thin thread of memory. Spanish director David Trueba worked on its screenplay adaptation (2003), betraying the original narration in order to confirm his fidelity to Cercas, in a superb analysis of analogies and differences that makes – in a paradoxical way – Soldados de Salamina the movie the perfect copy of the novel. This research offers a comparative analysis of both works and conclusions are based on the historical conjuncture of their production and reception.