Juan Goytisolo and the Contemporary Testimonial Narration

Abstract

Juan Goytisolo’s work advances an intellectual and literary project that is considerably distinctive within his generation. The project is linked to a paradigm of the concept of literature as a position of resistance to the political, social, and cultural status quo as well as an assertion of the author’s unshakable ethical integrity. The project materializes through an initial view of the literary text as a critical testimony of the local milieu and progressively of the entire Spanish cultural history. In its phase of maturity, the central referents of Goytisolo’s work are the view of the Spanish language as his only legitimate motherland as well as his continued identification with the marginalized members of society.