Overview
El diario El País salió a la calle el 4 de mayo de 1976, menos de seis meses después de la muerte de Franco, cuando el camino a la democracia apenas empezaba a atisbarse. La idea del periódico se incubó entre un grupo de editores e intelectuales que, en las postrimerías del franquismo, buscaba un instrumento de reforma del régimen, de talante liberal y vocación europeísta, que contribuyera a suturar las heridas provocadas por la guerra civil y la dictadura y a hallar una salida sin traumas del franquismo. Su éxito fue fulgurante.
A los 50 años de ese momento fundacional de la historia reciente española, Javier Cercas asumió el reto de contar la historia de un país a través de la de su periódico de referencia; pero El periódico de la democracia no es solo una historia personal de ese periodo: es también una reflexión acerca de la relación del periodismo con la literatura, una crónica de la formación intelectual de un escritor y un homenaje a la importancia de la prensa en la construcción y la defensa de las libertades.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
Javier Cercas’s new book recounts the last 50 years of Spain’s history—the same 50 years as the newspaper El País—through a personal journey and a lucid reflection on the ties between journalism, literature, politics, and freedom.
El País first appeared on newsstands on May 4, 1976, less than six months after Franco’s death, at a time when the path toward democracy was only just beginning to emerge. The idea for the newspaper took shape among a group of publishers and intellectuals who, in the final years of the Franco regime, sought a tool for reform—liberal in spirit and European in outlook—that would help heal the wounds caused by the Civil War and the dictatorship and find a smooth, trauma-free transition from Francoism. Its success was meteoric.
On the 50th anniversary of that foundational moment in Spain’s recent history, Javier Cercas took on the challenge of telling the story of a country through the story of its leading newspaper. But The Newspaper of Democracy is not only a personal account of that period: it is also a reflection on the relationship between journalism and literature, a chronicle of a writer’s intellectual formation, and a tribute to the vital role of the press in building and safeguarding freedoms.
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