Boabdil and the Fall of Granada: Historical Novels as a Narrative Template for Modern Spain’s National Identity

Creative artists’ interest in Boabdil, the last Islamic ruler of Granada, has been intense. Writers have repeatedly rewritten his story and that of the fall of Granada to Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Yet the appeal of new versions does not fade; different eras re-interpret his story to suit their needs. This article examines three fictional representations of Boabdil, his role in the fall of Granada, and his interactions with his Christian adversaries to analyse how this figure and moment are reinterpreted in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries. These novels―Antonio Gala’s El manuscrito carmesí The Crimson Manuscript (1990), Magdalena Lasala’s Boabdil. Tragedia del último rey de Granda Boabdil. Tragedy of the Last King of Granada (2004) and Antonio Soler’s Boabdil, un hombre contra el destino Boabdil, One Man against Destiny (2012)―appear some years apart but tell the same story in different contexts. I argue they constitute a narrative template that feeds into and reflects an evolving myth of Spanish national identity. These representations of Boabdil, Granada, the Muslim loss and the Christian victory are compared in order to identify which narrative template or myth of Spanish national identity is being deployed in these novels, and to what end.