Juan the Landless

The theme of Juan the Landless is exile. Juan is both landless and timeless. Exile has turned you into a completely different being, who has nothing to do with the one your countrymen once knew: their law is no longer your law: their justice is no longer your justice... as anonymous as the passing stranger, you will visit your own dwelling and dogs wil bark at your heels. A desperate attempt to see the world from the viewpoint of the other, it is Goytisolo's most total questioning of the possibility of fiction and language. The final volume in Goytisolo's great triology which includes Marks of Identity and Count Julian. Juan the Landless marks a turning-point in Goytisolo's work - from undiluted hostility to Spain towards a celebration of the Muslim contribution to our culture. It is for obvious reasons as relevant now as when it was written in 1975.