ABSTRACT
The Spanish New York narratives published since the end of the dictatorship offer a more empathetic view of the United States, both in travel literature and narrative fiction. As Julio Neira has extensively studied in Historia poetica de Nueva York en la Espana contemporanea, the references to New York in Spanish poetry did not wane after the Civil War, and have been especially significant since the end of Franco's regime. Similarly, the city has been a recurrent location for both Spanish travel literature and fictional narrative from 1939 to the present day. During the dictatorship, New York appears especially in travel books. The novel Chromos by Alfau, a Catalan writer who emigrated to the United States at an early age, is an unusual and fascinating case. Written in the 1940s and only published almost fifty years later, his novel tells the story of a group of 'Americaniards', the term used by the narrator for Spanish people living in New York.
