Memories of the Maghreb explores how the Spanish colonization of North Africa at the turn of the twentieth century continues to haunt Spain's efforts to articulate a national identity that can accommodate both the country's diversity, brought about by immigration from its old colonies, and the postnational demands of its integration in the European Union. Campoy-Cubillo analyzes Spanish contemporary cultural production about the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco, following a cultural studies approach to describe the material conditions that contributed to the development of Spanish colonial discourse and its rearticulation in contemporary Spain.

El Blocao, one of the most distinguished examples of avant-garde, anti-colonialist prose produced in Spain, is a collection of seven short stories parodying the highly popular serial fiction on the country's colonial wars in Morocco. Diaz-Fernandez appropriates the populist discourse articulated in the Moroccan War pulp fiction, subverting it in order to denounce the political and economic interests that inform the colonial enterprise, while effectively adopting the rhetorical innovations introduced by the European avant-garde during the 1920s. The advent of the Spanish Civil War and the premature death of its author put an end to what promised to be a brilliant literary and political career. After decades of historical amnesia on the part of Spanish academics and the Spanish public at large, the renewed interest in Spain's Protectorate of Morocco (1912-1956), brought about by the massive waves of Maghrebian immigration to Spain since the 1990s, has informed the recent fascination of scholars and the general public alike for Spain's last colonial enterprise. Spain's highly idiosyncratic colonization of the Maghreb (Morocco and Western Sahara) played a crucial role in the history of the country during the first half of the twentieth century. After the loss of its Latin American colonies in 1898, the Protectorate of Morocco became a poor substitute for the lost empire. Spain, no longer a European superpower, tried to reconcile the rebuilding of its own socio-economic infrastructures with its civilizing mission overseas. As one could expect, the resulting colonial discourse was ripe with contradictions that often betrayed Spain's long struggle.

El Blocao, one of the most distinguished examples of avant-garde, anti-colonialist prose produced in Spain, is a collection of seven short stories parodying the highly popular serial fiction on the country's colonial wars in Morocco. Diaz-Fernandez appropriates the populist discourse articulated in the Moroccan War pulp fiction, subverting it in order to denounce the political and economic interests that inform the colonial enterprise, while effectively adopting the rhetorical innovations introduced by the European avant-garde during the 1920s. The Blockhouse achieved great success from the date of its publication in 1928; it was translated into various languages, and rapidly sold out every one of its subsequent editions. In a Spanish literary context dominated by the dehumanization of art, expounded by Ortega y Gasset, Jose Diaz-Fernandez knew how to combine in his novel, the synthetic, imagist style of the artistic vanguard with the emotion and social commitment of the political vanguard. The novel is based on the life experiences of the author who brings a post-colonial vision to the narrative, thereby breaking away from the conventional anti-war sentiments of the pacifist novel. Its unity is fragmented into a collection of seven stories which create a unity of atmosphere; that of a harsh and tragic, living and asphyxiating world. The Blockhouse has been acclaimed as an innovative novelistic jewel, with a deep, human and socio-political content.

Using a cultural studies approach, this book explores how the Spanish colonization of North Africa continues to haunt Spain's efforts to articulate a national identity that can accommodate both the country's diversity, brought about by immigration from its old colonies, and the postnational demands of its integration in the European Union.