In A Cock-Eyed Comedy, Father Trennes is like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, a spirit of the age moving through several centuries of Spain's history. His most recent incarnation is as an Opus Dei religious leader in present-day Spain, whose conformity Goytisolo delightfully savages. A cast of real people and invented characters, including Roland Barthes, Jean Genet, and Manuel Puig, are mixed up in a literary and historical melting pot. A Cock-Eyed Comedy is a transgressive dark comedy with a significant message about religion and sexuality.

Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Juan Rulfo Award for Literature. His most recent books are State of Siege, The Garden of Secrets, and Landscapes of War.

'This work deserves the highest recognition . . . no-one can deny Juan Goytisolo is the main Spanish novelist on active service.'—Carlos Fuentes

'A beautifully written metaphor for what it means to seek out the truth in a world often dominated by lies . . . this author, now 70 years of age, is one of the most brilliant of living writers.'—The Los Angeles Times

Twenty-eight storytellers—one for each letter in the Arabic alphabet—meet in a garden to tell the story of a poet, Eusebio, arrested in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Eusebio, a friend of García Lorca and his circle, had escaped assassination and fled to North Africa.

Born in Barcelona, Juan Goytisolo left Spain in hatred of Franco. He now lives in Marrakesh, Morocco.

A traveler looks out his hotel window on a war-torn city. A mortar explodes in his room and, when the police arrive, the corpse has disappeared and only a notebook of apocryphal writings and poems is found. These enigmas lead into a labyrinth, where blind and barbarous forces lay siege to individual lives and diverse cultures.

'State of Siege is a novel of pure fiction, but infinitely more powerful than all the big speeches about Bosnia.'—Le Nouvel Observateur

'A passionate dialogue with the reader, a reflection on privacy and commitment [engagement], with the steady vigilant presence of a great literary voice.'—Le Monde

'The reader is thrown into the unreality of a besieged city, as if a firm hand had rudely pushed him out of the tank that brought him from the airport.'—L'Express

'For the Spaniard Juan Goytisolo, writing is a dangerous adventure.'—Lire

'Dreams, reminiscences of the war in Spain, thoughts on the novel, borrowings from mystery and detective fiction, references to ancient cultures and Arabic culture, numerous allusions to the narrative structure of Don Quixote—these make up the form of this novel that, as the author says in an ironic and provocative way, isn't written 'according to the rules.''—Fayard Presse

Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931 and lives in Marrakech. In 1993, he was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize for his literary achievement and contribution to world culture. His translated works include a two-volume autobiography, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife, the novels Marks of Identity, Count Julian, Juan the Landless, Quarantine, Virtues of a Solitary Bird, The Marx Family Saga, and The Garden of Secrets, and the essays Saracen Chronicles and Landscapes of War.

Goytisolo examines the fratricidal frenzy in Algeria and the war waged by French police against North African migrants in France, and he describes a besieged Sarajevo transformed into a concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire. He contemplates the despair and poverty of Palestinian youth living in the Occupied Territories and details the brutality of the Russian war in the Caucasus. Whether reporting on the fate of the Bosnians after the break up of the former Yugoslavia or analyzing the growing appeal of fundamentalisms - Islamic, Jewish, and Russian Orthodox - Goytisolo displays the same blend of intelligence, vision, and warm fellow-feeling that has made him one the most imposing literary figures of our time.

Many of these succinct and eloquent essays first appeared in Spain's leading newspaper El Pais, and English translations were published in the Times Literary Supplement (London).

About the Author

Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. In 1993 he was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize for his literary achievement and contribution to world culture. His translated works include a two volume autobiography, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife, the trilogy Marks of Identity, Count Julian and Juan the Landless, and the essays, Saracen Chronicles. His most recent work is The Marx Family Saga, published last year by City Lights Books.

Peter Bush is Director of the British Center for Literary Translation and translated Juan Goytisolo's The Marx Family Saga, which was awarde

Surreal fiction from Juan Goytisolo, Spain's greatest living writer. A resurrected Karl and Jenny Marx sitting on their sofa in Hampstead watching a television documentary about the landing of Albanian refugees on a private Italian beach, flourishing photocopies of dollar bills in search of paradise Dallas. Find out how Karl reacts to the demise of the systems Josef Visionariovitch and Co. built on his word! Read all about the family life of the Marxes, moving upmarket from Dean Street to Highgate and beyond, yet never free of the hock shop. Marx visits scenes of former triumphs in Moscow, where MacLenin T-shirts and harmburger freedom are all the rage, and returns to a Hampstead housewarming reception and ball filmed by the cameras for a Merchant-Ivoryish Red Baroness—which subsequently becomes the subject of a Saturday-night talk show featuring a feminist sexologist from UCLA, an anarchist from the Spanish Civil Bar, Bakunin . . . But the narrator's publisher, the urbane pipe-smoking Mr. Faulkner, wants a best-selling novel, a proper story with real facts and heart-rending descriptions of the Marx ménage. Some hope!