Kafka’s presence in the contemporary novel: Sefarad (2001) by Antonio Muñoz Molina

Abstract

The presence of great novelists of high modernity and their classics is a trend observed in the making of contemporary novels (Perrone-Moisés, 2016). Sometimes, these writers are turned into fictional characters, other times, reinterpretation of their stories and iconic characters are made. One way this presence is revealed is through the repeated use of narrative procedures of intertextuality such as transpositions, imitation, quotes, allusions and references (Genette, 2010) (Samoyault, 2008). Throughout his fictional narrative, the Spanish writer Antonio Muñoz Molina (1956) shows this trend. The novel Sefarad (2001) is one of the best examples of this literary writing inspired by reinterpretation(s), and the modern writer whose omnipresence is latent in the writing of this novel is Franz Kafka. The main objective of this article is to analyze the intertextuality procedures used by Muñoz Molina in the composition of Sefarad, in order to systemitise Kafka’s presence in the writing of the novel, assigning possible meanings to this presence. The result of this study reveals that Kafka figures in the composition of Sefarad in three ways: transformed into a fictional character; through the intertextuality established with some of his most emblematic texts; and clarity of vision attributed by the contemporary writer to Kafka as a privileged thinker of his time.