Have we, so far, been irreducible Valencian-speaking Valencians? Yes, says the author of this monumental work, Carles Fenollosa, we have been because we have survived, we have kept Valencian alive, in spite of everything and in spite of so much, and this has been possible both because we have not needed another language for the our daily life, as by the “stubborn insistence of a people” that in difficult times has remained faithful to its language. And also thanks to our literature that “has been a point of reference, a base, a beacon”.
It is from these approaches that Fenollosa presents a panoramic view of the history of the language and literature of the Valencians, from the 13th century to the present day, where we see the great authors and works of our literature parading through its pages , from the four great Chronicles, the Tirant, the diaries of the 17th centuries, the colloquia and popular literature of the 18th, the poetry of the Renaissance or the most current literary works, and fundamental characters such as Isabel de Villena, Constantí Llombart , Teodor Llorente or Joan Fuster.
However, it is not an academic and specialized manual, as we might think when we say it is a history book, but it is an essayistic text and, we would even say narrative, which fits to the author’s desire to create a work of an informative nature that reaches a wide range of readers, from students of language and literature to people interested in Valencian history and culture.
A consequence of this informative character is Fenollosa’s way of writing: he has produced a work explaining the passages of our past as no one has done so far, in a clear, understandable, close, easy-to-read way, with agile language and dynamic, which captures you as if it were a novel, with abundant notes of irony, use of colloquial expressions, typical of orality, and which seek the complicity of the reader. We are dealing with an exceptional narrator, as he had already demonstrated in works such as Narcís or l’onanisme, which won the Lletraferit Prize for Novel in 2018, and which he now demonstrates again in a work of an essayistic nature.
But the fact that the book has an informative and didactic nature does not mean that it is a superficial work; quite the contrary, we are dealing with an extremely rigorous text, both in terms of approach and execution. Fenollosa knows all the historical periods she analyzes very well, she has read the numerous works she comments on, as well as the studies prepared by specialists in each topic or stage. This is why his explanations are very personal, he does not limit himself to repeating what other authors have said about the period or the analyzed work, but often provides original assessments.
After all, Fenollosa presents “a digestible general interpretation of the history of our language and literature”, with the aim of composing a useful book to awaken awareness, to push us to action and work on in favor of Valencian, to transform the current situation of marginality in which some want to separate our language in our own country, that of the Valencians. In short, to know history, our past, to intervene in the present and above all to build the future.
