Help me avoid literature in Spanish.

June 14, 2009 11:06 AM

No quiero literatura: I'm looking for recommendations for genre fiction in Spanish. Help me avoid being overfaced when I arrive in the library.

I live in Spain and use the local library, but aside from the 'greats' I'm pretty stumped about what to take out. This thread and this one both have fine lists of novels in Spanish, but I'm not after literature, or magic realism or high art... in fact I want low art, I want SF, thrillers, detective novels, chick lit, bloke lit, historical fiction and the like, preferably not translated from any other language.

posted by itsjustanalias to media & arts (8 comments total)

How about El Origen Perdido by Matilde Asensi? I'm stumbling through it right now, but it involves hackers and Incas and lost civilization and Darwin.
posted by dhruva at 11:42 AM on June 14

The Captain Alatriste / Las aventuras del capitán Alatriste series of historical swashbucklers seems popular. I've only read the English translation of one though, but it seemed pretty good.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:46 PM on June 14

I'm not a big fiction reader but I can recommend Arturo Pérez-Reverte, too. I actually haven't read any of his Capitán Alatriste stuff (though I've heard it's good.) I can recommend his El maestro de esgrima and La piel del tambor.

Also: Zorro by Isabel Allende. Very cool novel.
posted by veggieboy at 12:58 PM on June 14

Microsiervos, a nerdy Spanish language blog, has a libros section, though they seem to favour translated works.

Gigamesh, a SF bookstore in Barcelona, lists their top sellers by year and month.
posted by zamboni at 1:38 PM on June 14

Just stop going to libraries. Find second hand bookshoops, and trust the covers. If you are in Barcelona, go next Sunday to the Mercado de San Antoni, you'll like it. Madrid has some good second hand bookshops as well, just google a bit.
posted by varoa at 2:25 PM on June 14

Pérez-Reverte is fun, El Club Dumas is a good historical mystery with occultists and all. Osvaldo Soriano's Triste, Soltario y Final is a pretty light and fun romp around classic noir stereotypes. The best genre fantasy I've read in Spanish is the trilogy La Saga de los Confines, by Liliana Bodoc; closely followed by Angelica Gorodischer's Kalpa Imperial (originally 2 volumes, but I think there might be a newer one volume edition, not sure). Carlos Gardini has some good SF short-story collections.
posted by Iosephus at 2:42 PM on June 14

Didn't notice you would go also for historical fiction... So, I'd also recommend Abel Posse's La Pasión Según Eva, a very interesting fictional reconstruction around both the real person and the mythical Eva Perón. Also entertaining, dealing with the Spanish Conquest of Mexico from both sides is Salvador de Madariaga's El Corazón de Piedra Verde.
posted by Iosephus at 3:00 PM on June 14

A small aside if I may: "literatura" does not have the high-art connotations as does its cognate "literature", it just means "written stuff" , so if you ask people "recomiéndame libros que no sean literatura" they'll probably give you blank stares.
posted by signal at 3:15 PM on June 14