GOYTISOLO, JUAN

born Jan. 5, 1931, Barcelona, Spain Spanish novelist, short-story writer, and essayist whose early Neorealist work evolved into avant-garde fiction using structuralist and formalist techniques. A young child when his mother was killed during the Spanish Civil War, Goytisolo grew up hating the fascist dictatorship and the country's conservative religious values. From 1948 to 1952 he attended the universities of Barcelona and Madrid. He lived in self-imposed exile in France from the late 1950s until Francisco Franco's death in 1975. His highly praised first novel, Juegos de manos (1954; The Young Assassins), concerns a group of students who are intent on murdering a politician and who kill the student they have chosen as the assassin. Duelo en el paraso (1955; Children of Chaos), set just after the Spanish Civil War, is about the violence that ensues when children gain power over a small town. After the publication of the short-story collection Fin de fiesta (1962; The Party's Over), his style grew more experimental, as in Seas de identidad (1966; Marks of Identity). Reivindicacin del Conde don Julin (1970; Count Julian), which is considered his masterwork, experiments with transforming the Spanish language, seen as a tool of political power. The novel excoriates Spain for its hypocrisy and cruelty. Later novels by Goytisolo include Juan sin tierra (1975; Juan the Landless), Makbara (1980), and En los reinos de taifa (1986; Realms of Strife). He also wrote travel narratives, critical essays, and a personal memoir, Coto vedado (1985; Forbidden Territory). The novel La saga de los Marx (The Marx Family Saga) was published in 1993.