Cityscapes and the novela de autoformacion: Elvira Navarro in Valencia

This article explores relationships between the traditional Bildungsroman novel and theories related to landscape in two novels by Valencian writer Elvira Navarro, La ciudad en invierno (2008) and La ciudad feliz (2009). Through a close reading of both texts, urban theory provides a way to understand Navarro's novels as incomplete coming-of-age stories. Instead of a male subject finding citizenship and happiness through marriage and labourthe standard climax of the traditional formNavarro's male and female protagonists' identity is plotted through violence and alienation. The transformation to adolescence occurs in a Valencia under intense economic speculation and aggressive changes to its landscape. This article argues that both novels signal the protagonists' dissociation from family, friends, and community as a process vital to the creation of the urban environment itself. The protagonists are mirrors of their city and their very inability to define themselves is that which ironically defines Valencia.