Goytisolo Gay, Juan

Born Jan. 5, 1931, in Barcelona. Spanish writer.

Since 1956, Goytisolo has lived in Paris. In his first books Sleight of Hand (1954; Russian translation, 1964) and Sorrow in Heaven (1955; Russian translation, 1962), the author was critical of the regime of the dictator Franco. In the trilogy made up of The Circus (1957; Russian translation, 1964), Fiestas (1958), and The Surf (1958; Russian translation, 1964) and in the collection of short stories To Live Here (1960). Goytisolo exposed official demagogism and depicted the everyday life of ordinary Spaniards. He is one of the initiators of the Spanish “young” or “objective” novel, whose theoretical principles (keen social content and literal accuracy of dialogue and documentation) he has expounded in critical essays such as the collection Problems of the Novel 1959. In the documentary novellas Nijar Fields (I960) and Chanca (1962; Russian translation, 1963), Goytisolo recorded the life of out-of-the-way parts of the country. In the novel Island of Women (1961; Russian translation. 1964) and the collection of short stories The Party’s Over (1962) he exposes the bourgeois intellectuals who adapt themselves to the Franco regime. In the novel Mark of Identity (1966; Russian translation, 1967) he achieved a synthesis of Spanish history and a profound psychological analysis of several types of modern Spanish intellectuals.