Nivola

Nivola is a term created by Miguel de Unamuno to refer to his works that contrasted with the realism prevalent in Spanish novels during the early 20th century. Since his works were not fully novels, or "novelas" in Spanish, Unamuno invented a nonsense word, "nivolas," to describe them.

Origin of the term: Niebla

The term nivola appears for the first time as a subtitle for Unamuno's book Niebla. With this term, the writer was trying to express his rejection of the dominant principles of realism as expressed in novels: the psychological characterization of the characters, the realistic environments, and the third person omniscient narrator.

He expresses this in his prologue to Niebla:

ORIGINAL

IN TRANSLATION

Niebla is the story of Augusto Pérez, a single man, philosophical and melancholy, who dedicates his time to long walks, and reflection, with his dog Orfeo. Augusto falls in love with Eugenia and idealizes her in a similar way to Don Quijote's idealization of Dulcinea. He dedicates himself to winning her love. The most famous passage of the novel occurs towards the end when the principal character decides to confront the real author, Miguel de Unamuno, to ask for advice about his destiny. The encounter degenerates into a confrontation in which the author decides to kill his character, which leads to the character's death a few pages later.