The “real story” of Javier Cercas in Soldados de Salamina

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the work Soldiers of Salamina, by Javier Cercas, considered by critics as one of the best novels published this century. It seeks to highlight the metafictional character of the work and analyze how the author relativizes the exploration of the real in the narrative, especially by doubling himself as narratorpersonage. The novel presents a complex game between the real and the fictional, beginning with the fact that it proposes to narrate the biography of a character from the 1938 Civil War, Rafael Sanchez Mazas, one of the founders of the Spanish Phalange, who allegedly escaped alive from a firing squad. The book shows the search of narratorpersonage Javier Cercas for Mazas' story, at the same time as he tries to rescue his vein as a writer. In this intricate game between fact and fiction, the author reflects on issues dear to literature, such as literary making, the construction of the hero, and the importance of literature for the rescue of personal and collective memory, to remove from oblivion the true heroes that history does not tell. Considering that much of the criticism points to a "return of the real" in contemporary literature, the work in question provokes us to reflect on the representation of reality in literature.