©Adrián Magaldi Fernández
ABSTRACT: To what extent what is known as “literature of the self” is a useful historical source? In what way does it allow to know about the historical reality? What benefits can a historian derive from its use? In this essay we try to find answers to all these questions. For this
purpose, we will use the “Spanish Transition” case, one of the most important events in our recent history and, at the same time, the most recalled by this genre. Firstly, we will carry out a theoretical and methodological review of the problematic and the history of the “ literatura of the self ”. Secondly we will analyze the different autobiographies and political memoirs of the Spanish Transition main protagonists. We will approach them from the perspective of
“confessional reading”, watching the self-constructions made by the authors and their aim by doing so. We will also study the different constructions of “collective self” built by generational, political or regional shared visions, which are really important elements to
convey the feeling of a time period. Finally, we will scrutinize them from the perspective of “documentary reading”, by analyzing the information that they provide and how it can be used. This will be done in order to understand their author's diverse conceptions of the
Transition to democracy as a specific historical time, their vision of other protagonists of this period, and what they consider to be key events.
