I sometimes read Spain books. In fact, the last 3 books I finished reading are all Basque literature published in Spain (luckily they all had Spanish translations).
I am reading a non fiction book by a Spanish author right now!
There are very few fiction books written by Latin American authors, be it trad or indie. A lot of it is cultural. Mexicans are (in)famous for not reading books for leisure... like... ever. Former President Pe帽a Nieto became a national mockey for both hiring a ghost writer to write the thesis dissertation for his masters degree that also plagiarized over 4 books word by word over the fact he was unable to answer the question of his favorite 3 books. At least Homer Simpson mentioned he loved to read TV guide. 馃し♀️
Spain has a huge trad book history and it is far easier to find books both indie and trad by Spanish writers. It is obviously the largest and well established market in the language. I think the English language readers that are happy the "eeeeevil feminists" are getting a taste of their own medicine are only seeing the Carmen Mola scandal from a far more egletarian anglo society lense.
Hate it or love it, ultra progressive viewpoints are not mainstream opinions in hispanic societies. Progressives are a very small minority of the population that get a huge amount of media attention but people don't think like that in real life. I don't see people in Spanish speaking countries to widely adopt inclusive language anytime soon.
I find it to be quite embarrassing while English language editorials were pushing to publish diverse authors since 2015, Spanish trad editorials waited until 2018 to emulate this formula. This is especially worrying because the vast majority of book readers in Spain are women. Men in Spain simply don't read books so editorials should have realized long ago they ignored the interests of their customer base for far too long.
Of course, plenty of men will complain about the reverse discrimination and how they are having a really hard time nowadays getting trad published anywhere. They always ignore the fact this is the everyday life of women who have historically been forced to publish with gender neutral pen names. Most aspiring female authors simply give up. Female readers like me are forced to swallow whatever is published even if we cringe deep deep inside about the often ridiculous ways male authors write women. I sometimes like reading these books with such abysmally cartoonish female characters because the 1 star reviews are so damn fun to write.
Women authors have historically had minimal leeway to write bad books. We had to work 10 times better and be scrutinized 10 times more. And I won't even start talking about how we are always under a magnifying glass being ridiculed for not wearing the right makeup or the right clothes or our weight... I get panned from all of those things all day so much that it entices me further to dress like a slob for the fun of annoying people.
The Spanish language criticism of Carmela's authors is very different from the rosey English viewpoint. One female reviewer suspected in 2020 Carmela was 3 men and has the facebook post to prove it. She thought at the time Carmela was 3 publicists that wanted to join the female author fever bandwagon. The reason was simply because they couldn't find a trad deal because editorials are now so uber vehement in reducing the shameful 30-70 ratio or risk irrelevance to the country's increasingly demanding female readers. She even suspected Carmela was the name of an ex of one of the guys. It's quite amazing she pretty much nailed the truth.
Critics of the Spanish feminist blogs and bookstores that lauded Carmela's books as grrl powerrrr mention the books had plenty of clues Carmela's books were examples of menwritewomen due to the ridiculously huge libido of female characters and the way male coworkers treated female characters which is totally unreal in real life among hispanic societies. They don't mock the authors as such (sometimes even giving the authors credit for being clever enough to dupe everyone for so long) but they focuded their ire towards the blogs and bookstores that blindly eco chambered whatever is written without even bothering to read the books.
After deliberation, Planeta couldn't disqualify Carmela's authors because they didn't break any rules, but I predict their rules next year will be far more stringent. If this blooper happens ever again, the female dominated reader clientele will stop buying Planeta books which in Spain's dire economic situation means bankruptcy.
If there is one good thing from all of this, Spain's grimdark and thriller female authors are getting a lot of free publicity.
Text by Nancy Foster. AI training or unauthorized reproduction forbidden.
