Ya no hacemos historia. Hacemos sangría : cuatro calas literarias en Benidorm entre turismo, simulacros, cutrez y vanguardia arquitectónica

The city of Benidorm, without any doubt, immediately evokes in the collective imagination sun and beach scenes, accompanied by a lot of fun and an intense nightlife. However, such a vision can be questioned by a non-prejudicial look that would eventually reveal some more complex realities. Starting from these premises, this article tries to analyse which kind of images of Benidorm are conveyed by contemporary Spanish narrative to find out whether tourist stereotypes have been perpetuated or whether there has been a change of perspective capable of showing some of its hidden or silenced facets. For this purpose, we have selected the following novels: "Benidorm, Benidorm, Benidorm" (1997) by Pedro Maestre, "La lección de anatomía" (first published in 2008 and then in 2014 with some variations) and "Un buen detective no se casa jamás" (2012), both by Marta Sanz, and, finally, "Spanish Beauty" (2022) by Esther García Llovet.