In this thoughtful and compelling book, leading Spanish literature scholar Noel Valis re-examines the role of Catholicism in the modern Spanish novel. While other studies of fiction and faith have focused largely on religious themes, Sacred Realism views the religious impulse as a crisis of modernity: a fundamental catalyst in the creative and moral development of Spanish narrative. Thoroughly researched, multidimensional, and spanning three centuries of Spanish literature, "Sacred Realism" is certain to become a classic in its field.

Noel Valis is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University. A highly regarded scholar of Spanish literature and culture, Valis is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. She is the author of the award-winning book The Culture of Cursileria: Bad Taste, Kitsch and Class in Modern Spain and editor of Teaching Representations of the Spanish Civil War.

"A remarkable book that challenges the prevailing view of religion as a spent force that has withered away in the age of modernity and the secular novel. . . . Compelling."--Linda M./i>--Linda M. Willem "Anales Galdosianos "