Reference: Pablo Ignacio de Dalmases and Olabarría (2019), Spanish West Africa in books – bibliographic and documentary sum of Western Sahara, Ifni and southern Morocco, Seville: Athenaica.
Prologue by Soledad Puértolas
The interest in Spanish colonialism in Africa has manifested itself in a very different way depending on the territory. The proximity, on the one hand, and the conflict, on the other, of Morocco has produced an abundant literature. It is followed by the territories of the Gulf of Guinea, which offered interesting prospects for agricultural exploitation and enormous possibilities for the acculturation of native societies. The Cinderellas were the territories of West Africa, almost impenetrable, of very doubtful profitability, with a population not very propitious to contacts with the outside and delimited by arbitrary frontiers. The first to study this geographical area were the authors of the powers involved in its colonization or protectorate, that is, French and Spanish, although the Hispanic bibliographic production during the colonial period was parva and promoted almost exclusively from the official sphere.
The asserted decolonization has awakened, on the other hand, an extraordinary interest in both researchers and literary creators, not only Spanish, but also from other countries. Spanish West Africa in books tries to record and comment on the bibliographic, essayistic or narrative production, published between the 19th century and the present day, whose content is related to any general or specific aspect of the territories that remained under Spanish administration, i.e. Western Sahara, the enclave of Ifni and southern Morocco or the Draa region, which was known as the southern zone of the Spanish protectorate. Bibliographical references, and in some cases newspaper or documentary, include texts published in different languages, although mostly in Spanish, and with the sole exception of those written exclusively in Arabic, deserving of a specific study.
Here, then, is a suitable work for the orientation, consultation and information of all those readers interested in any of the subjects referred to this geographical area.