Culture
The unorthodox critic and writer from Barcelona died on Sunday in Morocco
Jun 5, 2017 - 1:24 PM
Juan Goytisolo, the dissident nomad has died aged 86
The unorthodox critic and writer from Barcelona died on Sunday in Morocco
Jun 5, 2017 - 1:24 PM
He died aged 86, two years after being recognised as one the Spanish grand narrators of his time with the Cervantes Prize, after all a life swimming and narrating against the current.
‘Rara avis’ (Rare bird) is of his work ‘aberrant as in all his creations’, according to his own explanation, this grand and extraordinary unorthodox in Spanish literature and adopted the ideas of Cervantes - the creator of Don Quijote who, according him ‘was the birthplace of all European novelists’
Goytisolo died of natural causes in his home in the Marrakesh Medina accompanied by ‘my tribe’ - his friends. After a broken hip, his health started to deteriorate over recent months and he was using a wheelchair to get about. Not wanting a Catholic burial, his remains will stay in Morocco. He will be blessed over the next few days in the civil cemetery in Larache, according to his family and their delight as he joins his avid admirer Jean Genet in the same cemetery.
Author of some fifty titles, from novels, to essays, travelogues, story telling and his memoirs, to create a work where the common denominator is liberty and compromise. His legend is a iconoclastic narrator and essayist in a demanding work, risky and independent with legendary titles such as
‘Campos de Níjar’ - Fields of Níjar
‘Señas de identidad’ - Identity signs
‘Juan sin terra ‘ - Homeless Juan
‘Re-vindication of Count don Jilián’
Or ‘Coto Vedado’ - ‘Closed area’ - a harsh and demanding self-portrait of his open homosexuality and his last work ‘In the reigns of Taifa’
A paradigm of political incorrectness and dissidence - the only winner of the Cervantes denied wearing a waistcoat - he was a whip against the poorest vices of power and ideological submission. ‘There is no political correctness, such as sexual fantasies of whoever, which had not needed some correction’ said Goytisolo, considered by the other Cervantes, Carlos Fuentes, as ‘one of the best writers in the world’ - an essential author according to José Manuel Caballero Bonald, another Cervantes rebel.
He said in 2001, he would not accept any garland or award, but he broke his word - National Letters Prize in 2008, which he dedicated to his neighbours in the Medina where he was awarded ‘civil dress’ the only tie he ever used. He won the Cervantes ‘for his inquiring capacity in language’ for ‘his wish to integrate both sides, in the tradition of a Spanish unorthodox’ and for ‘his permanent belief in inter-cultural dialogues’
During the Franco years, he became on of the most uncomfortable and demanding writers in the second half of the XX century. A lucid mediator between European and Islamic cultures, never did he despise his eccentric intellectual position and to build bridges over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Known for his studious knowledge of the Arab world, he arrived in Marrakesh in 1976 to study the Arabian dialect - with his articles, essays and television series on his knowledge of European reality. Very pessimistic over the democratisation of the Arab world and the cruelty of Islamic State, seating himself in the times of the XV century.
He abominated ‘any nationalism, be it Arab, Catalan, Spanish, Basque of Gallego’ - he was ‘vicious’ against the Catalan secessionists,and hated Europe and Brussels for their dreadful management of the drama of immigration. ‘Since the birth of human species immigration existed - there is an uncontrollable human trafficking from all the African continent which perhaps Italy has borne the most. We need a common strength to defeat this tragedy’
Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona on January 5, 1931, into a Basque-Cuban family. Brother of two other writers, Luis narrator and academic, and José Agustín poet who died in 1999. He studied Law in Barcelona University. The death of his mother Julia during a Franco bombing in 1938 marked his infancy.
He fled to Paris in 1956 to escape Franco and there he married a novelist and scriptwriter Monique Lange in 1978, twinned souls and a bridge for him to know France. Lately he spent seasons in the USA with teaching jobs in Boston and New York
Juan Goytisolo
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‘Rara avis’ (Rare bird) is of his work ‘aberrant as in all his creations’, according to his own explanation, this grand and extraordinary unorthodox in Spanish literature and adopted the ideas of Cervantes - the creator of Don Quijote who, according him ‘was the birthplace of all European novelists’
Goytisolo died of natural causes in his home in the Marrakesh Medina accompanied by ‘my tribe’ - his friends. After a broken hip, his health started to deteriorate over recent months and he was using a wheelchair to get about. Not wanting a Catholic burial, his remains will stay in Morocco. He will be blessed over the next few days in the civil cemetery in Larache, according to his family and their delight as he joins his avid admirer Jean Genet in the same cemetery.
Author of some fifty titles, from novels, to essays, travelogues, story telling and his memoirs, to create a work where the common denominator is liberty and compromise. His legend is a iconoclastic narrator and essayist in a demanding work, risky and independent with legendary titles such as
‘Campos de Níjar’ - Fields of Níjar
‘Señas de identidad’ - Identity signs
‘Juan sin terra ‘ - Homeless Juan
‘Re-vindication of Count don Jilián’
Or ‘Coto Vedado’ - ‘Closed area’ - a harsh and demanding self-portrait of his open homosexuality and his last work ‘In the reigns of Taifa’
A paradigm of political incorrectness and dissidence - the only winner of the Cervantes denied wearing a waistcoat - he was a whip against the poorest vices of power and ideological submission. ‘There is no political correctness, such as sexual fantasies of whoever, which had not needed some correction’ said Goytisolo, considered by the other Cervantes, Carlos Fuentes, as ‘one of the best writers in the world’ - an essential author according to José Manuel Caballero Bonald, another Cervantes rebel.
He said in 2001, he would not accept any garland or award, but he broke his word - National Letters Prize in 2008, which he dedicated to his neighbours in the Medina where he was awarded ‘civil dress’ the only tie he ever used. He won the Cervantes ‘for his inquiring capacity in language’ for ‘his wish to integrate both sides, in the tradition of a Spanish unorthodox’ and for ‘his permanent belief in inter-cultural dialogues’
During the Franco years, he became on of the most uncomfortable and demanding writers in the second half of the XX century. A lucid mediator between European and Islamic cultures, never did he despise his eccentric intellectual position and to build bridges over the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Known for his studious knowledge of the Arab world, he arrived in Marrakesh in 1976 to study the Arabian dialect - with his articles, essays and television series on his knowledge of European reality. Very pessimistic over the democratisation of the Arab world and the cruelty of Islamic State, seating himself in the times of the XV century.
He abominated ‘any nationalism, be it Arab, Catalan, Spanish, Basque of Gallego’ - he was ‘vicious’ against the Catalan secessionists,and hated Europe and Brussels for their dreadful management of the drama of immigration. ‘Since the birth of human species immigration existed - there is an uncontrollable human trafficking from all the African continent which perhaps Italy has borne the most. We need a common strength to defeat this tragedy’
Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona on January 5, 1931, into a Basque-Cuban family. Brother of two other writers, Luis narrator and academic, and José Agustín poet who died in 1999. He studied Law in Barcelona University. The death of his mother Julia during a Franco bombing in 1938 marked his infancy.
He fled to Paris in 1956 to escape Franco and there he married a novelist and scriptwriter Monique Lange in 1978, twinned souls and a bridge for him to know France. Lately he spent seasons in the USA with teaching jobs in Boston and New York
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