The writer Álvaro Retana broke the mold and showed in his works a modern, hedonistic, celebratory homosexuality that was far removed from the prejudices of his time. Born in 1890, he is considered the first gay celebrity in Spain and the greatest writer of erotic literature of his time. However, his prolific work became invisible with the arrival of Francoism, which condemned him to prison, death and ostracism. The sentence was not served, but despite his efforts, Retana was barely able to publish in the regime and his figure faded in a literary system controlled with an iron fist by the dictatorship.
Now, the professor of the Department of Spanish Philology at the University of Valencia José Martínez Rubio claims his figure in the book El Francoismo contra Álvaro Retana. Unpublished writings (Editorial Renacimiento) where he reconstructs the efforts of the writer, couturier, illustrator and lyricist of cuplés to publish again after his time in various prisons, and to recover the success he had had in the first third of the century with frivolous, gallant novels , from a kiosk… reaching a popular audience that was open to the modernity of the 1920s.
The work, which is part of a memory literature research project, highlights the personal repression and repression towards his writing that goes beyond political persecution. Researcher Martínez Rubio talks with La Vanguardia.
Why do you talk about personal repression?
Retana was sentenced to death despite the fact that his Republican affiliation has to be questioned. What there was no doubt was that his writings represented an uninhibited and festive sexuality. When the Franco regime arrived, because he showed himself as a libertine, he spent a decade in different prisons. He was very irreverent towards religion, which is why he is classified as anticlerical. The death sentence is justified by that scandalous image that Francoism cannot allow. He is punished for exhibiting a sexuality that is not conceivable in the regime. He turned sexuality into an activity of enjoyment.
How did he represent homosexuality?
At the beginning of the 21st century, the paradigms of representation of homosexuality followed three discourses: the doctor, who explained homosexuality in terms of pathology; the religious, who conceived it as a sinful and unnatural act; and the legal one, which linked homosexuality to an idea of ??perversion of youth and social danger. Retana raises the normality of homosexuality and proposes enjoying it, enjoying it and living it in a positive way, freed from prejudices and putting pleasure and enjoyment first.
Martínez Rubio says that he does it with very explicit works such as The Charm of the Round Bed, The Prince Who Wanted to Be a Princess or The Ambiguous Ones and that it is not limited to male homosexuality, but also female homosexuality. “He has a wide catalog of characters of bisexuals, transvestites… he writes the first biography Egmont de Bries, one of the first transvestites. He was interested in sexual heterodoxy, breaking with conventions, and Francoism could not allow that.”
Despite this, explains the researcher from the University of Valencia (UV), after leaving prison, Retana published 16 works between 1939 and 1970, the year of his death. The writer submitted up to 55 different titles to the censors, most of which did not see the light of day.
“In the 16 works that are published, Retana does a great job of purification and self-censorship. The publications do not attack morality, the regime or religion. They are novels with a very white and naive humor or they are studies on theater or Spanish song.” In those years, Retana suffered financial hardship and had to sell his house in the center of Madrid and move to the Lavapiés neighborhood. These types of publications allow you to survive. A clear example, in 1957 the film The Last Cuplé, by Sara Montiel, was released and as he was one of the top specialists he began to collaborate in some newspapers.
-And what happens with the rest of the works?
– They remain in the bowels of censorship. She tries to recover the works from the 20s and 30s, but that type of sexuality is impossible for the Franco regime to accept. It must be taken into account that he is a suspect until the end of his life; They call him perverted, immoral. Along these lines, any minimally ironic expression or scene in his writings is received with suspicion by the censors and the vast majority does not see the light of day. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that before publishing, the censors examine the background and verify that Retana was in prison from 39 to 48. I have read many of the works and they are perfectly publishable, even under Franco. At the beginning of the dictatorship Retana is very well known and has had overwhelming success, which is why there is so much resentment and suspicion… Little by little his figure is becoming invisible.
– However, Retana tries to deceive the censorship.
-He insists on publishing to earn a living. In times of the Republic he was expelled from his position as an official of the Court of Accounts. The Franco regime did not give him his job back until the 60s, but one day after reinstating him, he retired. He had made a lot of money writing and believes that he can continue to make a living that way. That is why he tries to circumvent censorship by changing the titles of previously censored works to try to fool another censor. He uses the name of his son to avoid censorship or threatens that if he is not allowed to publish he will do so in other countries such as Mexico or Argentina. He doesn’t do well.
Although it may be surprising, Retana had a son. Martínez Rubio explains that despite his sexual condition, he joked that he had had “three experimental marriages.”
Despite his insistence on continuing to publish, his figure gradually faded and not even the Press Law of 1966, known as the Fraga Law, could, according to Martínez Rubio’s research, allow him to regain notoriety.
“There is a widespread idea that, by eliminating prior censorship, it was much easier to publish but, in reality, it was a very perverse rule. The editors risked publishing something that, the next day, could be withdrawn with the consequent economic loss for the company, in addition to the criminal consequences that could ensue. Therefore, the level of self-censorship increases and authors become more cautious. Furthermore, the regulations allowed for voluntary consultation. Thus, in the event of doubts as to whether it would be permitted, a work could be sent prior to publication with the handicap that, when the censors received a work about which the authors already had their doubts, they judged it more severely.”
This is why not even the supposed openness of the Franco regime that coincided with the last years of his life allowed Álvaro Renata to escape the ostracism to which he was condemned and that subsequent studies and investigations must be those that value his work and his way. to break taboos and open closets.
