Makbara - (Spanish Literature) by Juan Goytisolo (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Makbara, Juan Goytisolo--widely considered Spain's greatest living writer--again dazzles the reader with his energetic, stylistic prose, which he himself compares to a snake: cunning, sly, sinuous. But the themes in Makbara are perhaps more universal than in his earlier works. Makbara is full of its own kind of warmth, humor, and love. After all, makbara is an Arab word referring to the spot in North African cemeteries where young couples meet for romantic encounters. Sex, for Goytisolo, is clearly the greatest cosmic joke, the great leveller. "Sex," he says, "is above all freedom."

Review Quotes

a hymn to sex as freedom' -The Guardian

"[A] frank and solitary writer: on a crusade for truth. . . . He's an outsider--his own man." -- Guillermo Cabrera Infante

"An epic work, to be read and re-read." -- Mario Vargas Llosa

"It is natural that Goytisolo should immediately bring Joyce, Malcolm Lowry, Beckett and even Nabokov to mind... he is fully worthy to be considered among the major innovators of our time." -- V.S. Pritchett

About the Author

Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.