The common man, between the novel and history: Imán (1930), by Ramón J. Sender
Jordi Canal
School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris
ORCID: 0000-0001-8142-5534
Received: 21/03/2025
Published: 17/12/2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.31338/ahi.2025.4.2
ABSTRACT: The wars in Africa have been a fertile literary theme in contemporary Spain, both in the case of those of the 19th century and those of the following century. Among the novels, Ramón J. Sender’s Imán (1930), which has as its historical background the so-called Annual disaster of 1921, stands out. The novel’s pages are filled with young soldiers from all over Spain –mostly poor people who were recruited without remission and treated practically like slaves or beasts– but also officers and non-commissioned officers and indigenous troops. What interests Sender is, above all, the common man. His characters are authentically flesh and blood, like so many who lived through similar circumstances in extratextual reality. Novels offer, through the literary imagination, the possibility of approaching the other and multiplying lives. Taking this into account does not mean proposing that historians write novels, but better history.
KEYWORDS: novel, history, literary imagination, war, Ramón J. Sender, Restoration, Annual.
