Negotiating Sainthood

"Kathy Bacon's approach to sainthood leads to fresh readings of texts by Spain's three principal realist novelists: Benito Perez Galdos, Leopoldo Alas, and Emilia Pardo Bazan. The author challenges the conventional distinction between anti-clerical and 'spiritual' novels by these writers, and questions previous feminist assumptions about the negative role of religions for female identity. Sainthood emerges as a key theme through which texts grapple with Spain's difficult transition to modernity."--BOOK JACKET.