This diachronic study investigates the works of fiction that were listed in the reading lists for graduate courses in Spanish at Lund University between the years 1970 and 2015. The study focuses on the role of Spanish as a literary gatekeeper and analyzes the literary corpus from three assumptions: that the literature listed has a contemporary profile, rather than a classical-canonical one; that peninsular Spanish literature dominated the reading lists at the expense of Latin American literature until the 1980s; and, finally, that until the 1990s the reading lists were dominated by male authors. Sample surveys of the reading lists from 1970, 1985, 2000 and 2015 confirm the first two assumptions, whereas the third one is proven to be incorrect: only in 2015 can a true "feminine turn" be found, as a more equal balance between female and male authors was struck in the lists. The predominance of male authors can also be found in what I have chosen to call the local canon of authors: during the 45 years that were investigated, works by five authors recur, only one of whom is a woman, Ana María Matute. The other authors are Borges, García Lorca, Unamuno and Vargas Llosa.