Author María Dueñas brings back the memory of Spanish migrants who fled Spain in the 1920s—a time of «complicated» circumstances and «few future opportunities«—in her new novel ‘Por si un día volvemos’ (Planeta). She stated that while drawing a parallel with the current migration crisis is challenging, migrants escape from «very negative, adverse, and complex situations» in search of a better life.
«Everyone flees from very negative, adverse, and complex situations in search of a better life. That’s the short and seemingly simplistic phrase, but it truly reflects the reality of all these people. Now, how do they do it, under what conditions, and in what circumstances? That’s what varies. During the time of French Algeria, since the French were in charge, they tried to make immigration quite controlled and official,» explained the author during a media event in Alicante, a city that, along with Murcia and Almería, served as starting points for these Spaniards on their journey to Algeria.
This «official» migration is portrayed in her book, which is already on sale with an initial print run of half a million copies. Dueñas argued that this is the ideal Europe would «aspire to» today—a well-managed immigration system.
«That would be the ideal we would aspire to in Europe now, an orderly, organized, and well-managed immigration system. But at the same time, many desperate people managed to slip through, people who needed to move forward. We are also witnessing this in the opposite phenomenon. It is complicated, difficult, and complex for all parties involved, for those who arrive and those who receive them. But it’s a phenomenon that has been around since the beginning of time. We’ve spent our lives moving from one place to another, and it’s extremely challenging to close the doors. Hopefully, everything could be done in the most official, regulated, and beneficial way for all parties, but many times we find that it’s impossible,» added the author.
Dueñas delved into this story after extensive research because the colonial end of French Algeria in Oran, where her protagonist Cecilia arrives, is not a well-known chapter in Spanish history.
«It has been addressed from other perspectives, but it has been less explored in narrative fiction… This is something that happens in Spain and everywhere, ultimately history is atomized to suit those interested. Since the story is from this corner of the map (Alicante), it doesn’t have the same impact on the rest of Spain,» the author pointed out.
In this regard, the author of ‘The Time in Between’, ‘The Vineyard’, and ‘Sira’ returns to a work where history serves as a backdrop, highlighting a moment «forgotten» due to «lack of interest» or «lack of appeal,» in her opinion.
«If it serves not only to create a fictional story about the world of characters from my imagination but also to recover these chapters of Spanish history that have been somewhat lost, I am glad to be able to contribute a little to keeping that memory alive,» she explained.
«WOMEN HAVEN’T REACHED THE DESIRED LEVEL OF PROTECTION YET»
‘Por si un día volvemos’ follows the progress of women over 30 years through the history of a country like Algeria, and through a character like Cecilia, a woman who becomes strong in the face of numerous violence and vulnerabilities throughout the novel.
Although Dueñas acknowledges that women from «Western societies and of a certain cultural level» are much more protected today, the desired level of protection has not been achieved yet.
«We are much more protected than women from that past. However, we have not reached the desired and absolute level of protection yet. There is still a long way to go, and many things still need to be done, just open the newspaper every day to see the situation.
PIEDS-NOIRS, A «DEROGATORY» TERM THAT NOW «HAS MEANING»
In 1962, when Algeria gained independence from France, 40% of the European citizens in the city of Oran were Spaniards—according to data provided by researcher and author of ‘Spanish People in French Algeria, Migration and Exile’, Juan Ramón Roca—living alongside French people born and raised in Algeria—some of whom were also children of Spanish immigrants—known as ‘pieds-noirs’.
Dueñas explains that this term, coined by the French with a derogatory connotation to refer to these migrants in the final years of the colony, is an adjective that many adopted as a way to «identify» themselves, something she also reflects in ‘Por si un día volvemos’.
«They embrace that collective identity because they feel so displaced and unprotected that they make it their own, they now fully identify as ‘pieds-noirs’. It’s the referential thing that marks and signifies them,» the author pointed out.
Regarding the lack of representation of this historical chapter in Spanish narrative, Dueñas reflected on how history is told from various perspectives, then affirmed that Spain is a country with «thousands of stories to tell.»
«We live in this world of little pieces, sometimes we forget that the personal can also be shared and can be interesting for everyone, it can be transversal and of broader interest than just local. We have a country full of thousands of stories to rescue and bring to light,» concluded the author.