Don Julián / Count Julian
Novel , 1970
Galaxia Gutenberg
Exiled in Tangiers, cut off from home and country, the narrator of Count Julian rants against the homeland he was forced to leave: Spain. The second novel in Juan Goytisolo's trilogy (including Marks of Identity and Juan the Landless), this story of an exiled Spaniard confronts all of Goytisolos' own worst fears about fascist Spain. The narrator identifies himself with the real Count Julian, the Great Traitor who allegedly opened the gates of Spain to an invasion of Moors and the consequent eight hundred years of Islamic Influence. For the narrator, nothing short of total destruction of Spain and all things Spanish will be an acceptable punishment for his exile.
"Undoubtedly the greatest living Spanish novelist." Carlos Fuentes
"It is natural that Goytisolo should immediately bring Joyce, Malcolm Lowry, Beckett, and even Nabokov to mind." V.S. Pritchett
"Juan Goytisolo is the best living Spanish novelist." Times Literary Supplement
"An original and significant force in contemporary literature." Newsday