Popular Culture Review Vol. 20, No. 1, Winter 2009 | Page 102

98 Popular Culture Review bom at the beginning and those bom at the end differ considerably. This is all the more true when we consider that Spain’s political and social climate changed radically after the death of dictator Franco in 1975. For those bom after 1969, Franco and fascism were nothing but a distant, familial memory. On the contrary, those who grew up in the sixties had time to become conscious of Franco’s rule before the transition towards democracy started. Naturally, as we closely examine the works produced by Leather Literature, we can distinguish at least two separate generations among these newcomers. The first generation, bom in the early sixties, is composed of writers like Juana Salabert (Paris, 1962) , Ignacio Martinez de Pison (Zaragoza, 1960), Belen Gopegui (Madrid, 1963) , Javier Cercas (Ibahemando, 1962), and Benjamin Prado (Madrid, 1961.) These writers were already between 12 and 15 years old when Franco died, and although they did not live through either the Civil War or the post-war period, they are still children of a fascist society, thus the memories of Franco’s regime are omnipresent in their novels. The transition towards democracy meant a radical change in attitudes and mentalities regarding the Catholic church, family values, nationalism, and sex, to name but of few of the issues at hand. In less than 10 years, Spain moved from being a totalitarian, Catholic fundamentalist country to being a modem, capitalistic society, fully integrated within the European Union. Those bom in the early sixties lived their youth during a profound shift in consciousness and found themselves between two worlds, literally, for Spain truly became another world during the years of the transition (mid seventies to mid eighties.) We could call these authors the lost generation, as if they had been bom and lived at the wrong time, for they came to reason in a world which was already about to disappear. It is not surprising to find that, as did the previous generation of Spanish authors, they favour historical contexts for their narrative, such as the Spanish Civil War, post-war period, the Nazi occupation, Francos's regime, or May ’68. The authors bom in the late sixties and early seventies, on the other hand— such as Jose Angel Mafias (Madrid, 1971), Pedro Maestre (Elda, 1967), Lucia Etxebam'a (Bermeo, 1966), Ray Loriga (Madrid, 1967) and Jose Machado (Madrid, 1974)—do not use the same cultural or historical references and draw their inspiration from contemporary influences such as music, movies, comics, etc. They deal with such themes as drugs, rock music, comics, weapons, sex, homosexuality, and unemployment, clearly contemporary issues that did not concern Spanish society before Franco’s demise and the transition towards democracy. In spite of their noticeable differences, several authors from both generations, lumped together into Leather Literature, reached fame and recognition during the same period of time, heavily promoted by the powerful machinery of the publishing industry. After the success of Stories o f Kronen, publishers saw the interest in appealing to a new base of readers, mainly composed of the youth, who had not lived through the last decade of fascism