Juan Goytisolo

Juan Goytisolo (born 1931 in Barcelona) is a Spanish poet and novelist. He currently lives in a voluntary self-exile in Marrakesh.

Juan Goytisolo was born to an aristocratic family; two of his brothers José Agustín and Luis are also well known writers. His father was imprisoned by the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War while his mother was killed in the first Francoist air raid in 1938.

After law studies, he published his first novel, "The Young Assassins", in 1954. His deep opposition to Generalissimo Francisco Franco led him into exile in Paris in 1956, where he worked as a reader for Gallimard. In the early 1960s, he was a friend of Guy Debord. Breaking with the realism of his earlier novels, he published "Marks of Identity" (1966), "Count Julian" (1970) and "Juan the Landless" (1975). Like all his works, they were banned in Spain until after Franco's death.

Juan Goytisolo was married to the publisher, novelist and screenwriter Monique Lange, a cousin of novelist Marcel Proust, Emmanuel Berl, and the philosopher Henri Bergson. Monique Lange died in 1996. After her death, he is noted as saying their once shared Paris apartment had become like a tomb. In 1997 he moved to Marrakesh, in part due to the Arab culture's acceptance of his homosexuality.cite web |last=Costa |first=Maria Dolores |title=Goytisolo, Juan |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/goytisolo_j.html |date=2002-11-08 |accessdate=2007-07-23 |work=glbtq.com]

"Count Julian" (1970, 1971, 1974) takes up, in an act of outspoken defiance, the side of Julian, count of Ceuta, a man traditionally castigated as the ultimate traitor in Spanish history. In Goytisolo's own words, he imagines "the destruction of Spanish mythology, its Catholicism and nationalism, in a literary attack on traditional Spain." He identifies himself "with the great traitor who opened the door to Arab invasion." The narrator in this novel, an exile in North Africa, rages against his beloved Spain, forming an obsessive identification with the fabled Count Julian, dreaming that, in a future invasion, the ethos and myths central to Hispanic identity will be totally destroyed.

Works

Fiction:
*"Juegos de manos" (1954).
*"Duelo en el Paraíso" (1955).
*"El circo" (1957). Part of the trilogy "El mañana efímero".
*"Fiestas" (1958). Part of the trilogy "El mañana efímero".
*"La resaca" (1958). Part of the trilogy "El mañana efímero".
*"Para vivir aquí" (1960). Short stories.
*"La isla" (1961).
*"La Chanca" (1962).
*"Fin de Fiesta. Tentativas de interpretación de una historia amorosa" (1962). Stories.
*"Señas de identidad" (1966). "Álvaro Mendiola" trilogy.
*"Reivindicación del conde don Julián" (1970). "Álvaro Mendiola" trilogy.
*"Juan sin Tierra" (1975). "Álvaro Mendiola" trilogy.
*"Makbara" (1980).
*"Paisajes después de la batalla" (1985).
*"Las virtudes del pájaro solitario" (1988).
*"La cuarentena" (1991).
*"La saga de los Marx" (1993).
*"El sitio de los sitios" (1995).
*"Las semanas del jardín" (1997).
*"Carajicomedia" (2000).
*"Telón de boca" (2003).

Essays:

*"Problemas de la novela" (1959). Literature.
*"Furgón de cola" (1967).
*"España y los españoles" (1979). History and politics.
*"Crónicas sarracinas" (1982).
*"El bosque de las letras" (1995). Literature.
*"Disidencias" (1996). Literatura.
*"De la Ceca a la Meca. Aproximaciones al mundo islámico" (1997).
*"Cogitus interruptus" (1999).
*"El peaje de la vida" (2000). With Sami Naïr.
*"El Lucernario: la pasión crítica de Manuel Azaña" (2004).

Others:

*"Campos de Níjar" (1954). Travels, journalism.
*"Pueblo en marcha. Tierras de Manzanillo. Instantáneas de un viaje a Cuba" (1962). Travels, journalism.
*"Obra inglesa de Blanco White" (1972). Editor.
*"Coto vedado" (1985). Memoir.
*"En los reinos de taifa" (1986). Memoir.
*"Alquibla" (1988). TV script for TVE.
*"Estambul otomano" (1989). Travels.
*"Aproximaciones a Gaudí en Capadocia" (1990). Travels.
*"Cuaderno de Sarajevo" (1993). Travels, journalism.
*"Argelia en el vendaval" (1994). Travels, journalism.
*"Paisajes de guerra con Chechenia al fondo" (1996). Travels, journalism.
*"Lectura del espacio en Xemaá-El-Fná" (1997). Illustrated by Hans Werner Geerdts.
*"El universo imaginario" (1997).
*"Diálogo sobre la desmemoria, los tabúes y el olvido" (2000). Conversation with Günter Grass.
*"Paisajes de guerra: Sarajevo, Argelia, Palestina, Chechenia" (2001).
*"Pájaro que ensucia su propio nido" (2001). Articles.
*"Memorias" (2002).
*"España y sus Ejidos" (2003).

Literary Prizes

1985: Premio Europalia.1993: Premio Nelly Sachs.2002: Premio Octavio Paz de Literatura.2004: Premio Juan Rulfo.

References

External links

* [http://www.cnice.mecd.es/tematicas/juangoytisolo/ Official Page]
* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/internationalwriting/story/0,6194,353291,00.html Scourge of the New Spain] , an article on Goytisolo from The Guardian
* [http://www.centerforbookculture.org/interviews/interview_goytisolo.html Interview with Goytisolo] from the Center for Book Culture
* [http://www.complete-review.com/authors/goytisoloj.htm Goytisolo at the Complete Review] - bibliography, evaluation, and links
* Fernanda Eberstadt, [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/magazine/16goytisolo.html The Anti-Orientalist] , New York Times Magazine article, April 16, 2006
* Juan Goytisolo, [http://montages.blogspot.com/2007/11/voltaire-and-islam.html Voltaire and Islam] , El País, 4 May 2006