Coming in from the Cold? The Spy Novel as Trojan Horse, Or the Case of Belén Gopegui'sEl lado frío de la almohada

The novelist Belén Gopegui has come to be characterized as an ‘escritora comprometida’, consistently winning critical acclaim for her penetrating examinations of post-transition Spanish society. In 2004, Gopegui's increasingly radical left-wing politics seemed to reach a culmination point with her public declarations of support for the Cuban Revolution that accompanied the publication of her fifth novel, El lado frío de la almohada. Drawing on aspects of Ulrich Beck's ‘risk society’ thesis, this article analyses this defence and the author's decision to present it in the popular form of the espionage thriller in the context of the ‘risk conflict’ represented by the 2003 Iraq War and some of its corollaries: the supporting role of the Spanish government; the increased antagonism between the United States and Cuba; and the reaction of part of the Spanish left to the Cuban crackdown in April of that year

Cold war · Espionage · Left-wing politics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Trojan horse · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · History · Latin American Literature Studies · Law