Abstract/Summary

The Spanish writer Marta Sanz (b. 1967) is one of the most prominent representatives of a form of literary realism that has consolidated in the last two decades as a response to the decaying social and economic conditions wrought by neoliberalism. Sanz engages in a forceful ethical debate that exposes the effects of an inhumane system on the lives of the working and middle classes. Against this backdrop, she places the female figure at the core of her writings by reflecting on the specific forms of inequality that neoliberal capitalism has created for women. In this respect, this chapter focuses on the representations of female identity in the works of Marta Sanz, taking as its central themes the variables that most strongly contribute to the configuration of subjectivity, such as work, love, and biology. In Sanz’s work, the female figure appears inscribed in a complex cultural, social and historical landscape creating a world in which two primary dynamics overlap: personal experience, and the political superstructure that inevitably shapes everyday life. In this way, and through an intersectional approach, this chapter explores how Sanz formulates female identity in her novels, autobiographies and essays by considering the correlation between lived experience and its determining biological, social and political forces.