Spanish and Catalan Perceptions of Blackness: The Cases of El negro que tenía el alma blanca (1922) and Llibertat! (1901)

Abstract: This paper explores how Blackness was perceived in early twentieth century Spain and Catalonia by analyzing two literary works: the novel El negro que tenía el alma blanca (1922) by Alberto Insúa and the theatre play Llibertat! (1901) by Santiago Rusiñol. The essay employs Frantz Fanon’s post-colonial and psychoanalytical theory about the colonized subject to provide a snapshot of Spanish and Catalan perceptions of Blackness in the early twentieth century, contributing to the flourishing debate about race in Iberian Studies. The article demonstrates that the plots of the texts, despite being lauded as antiracist, reproduce hegemonic discourses of race and replicate hegemonic racial tropes. In particular, these literary works sharply illuminate the authors’ hegemonic perceptions of black people. The literary analysis indicates that at the beginning of the twentieth century hegemonic discourses of the Other permeated the Iberian Peninsula, and Spanish and Catalan societies were afflicted by them and unable to conceptualize racial difference beyond stereotypes.