Better Alone? Capitalist Primitivism and the Antisocial Turn in the Contemporary Iberian Rural Novel

Abstract: Recent acclaimed novels and films have rekindled interest in the Iberian rural as a microcosm for exploring the social nature of humankind. This resurgence attempts to forge sustainable alternatives but confronts a mythologized view of the rural as antisocial, resistant to political change. This narrative emphasizes the inherent violence and primitiveness of rural life, countering the 1970s Marxist-leaning peasant studies, which recover the rural as a space pregnant with non-capitalist practices. Focusing on contemporary novels Un amor, Sola , and Mamut , this study argues that they reinforce liberal individualism and property's central role in freedom, and that they reject the rural as a feminist counter-concept.