SOURCE: “Writers and Their Critics: Buero's La Detonación,” in Hispanic Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, Fall, 1986, pp. 47–60.

In the following essay, Halsey discusses Buero Vallejo's relationship with Franco-era censors by tracing the author's use of José Mariano de Larra in La detonación.

Many of Buero's protagonists represent author surrogates. However, with none of them does Buero so closely identify as with José Mariano de Larra of La detonación (1977), the dramatist's first play authored and premiered in post-Franco Spain. This identification is quite natural given Buero's well-known passion for truth and given, also, his well-documented difficulties with government censors during the Franco dictatorship.¹ After the death of Fernando VII, during the subsequent regency of María Cristina, with its rapid alternation of ministries that defrauded the Liberals' hopes, Larra stated that to write in Madrid was to weep. Buero no doubt experienced the same sentiment during the Franco...