Writing the Self: Autobiography and Fiction in the work of Juan Goytisolo

The proposed research is a book-length study of a contemporary novelist who is arguably Spain's most significant living writer, whose work spans over half a century and who has recently published what he claims is his last novel. The book therefore will be an interpretation of what is considered his most important work, i.e. that dating from the early 60s when he took a decision to write from a deeply personal, autobiographical perspective. It will, however, focus especially on the most recent novels, i.e. those written after the exhaustively analysed Mendiola Trilogy (1966-75). No study so far has attempted a focused analysis of the impact and the function of that autobiographical dimension. Most attention of this sort has been given to the author's actual autobiographical writings (two volumes of memoirs published in the mid-80s). Autobiographical interpretations in the past ran counter to the more contemporary structuralist and post-structuralist approaches used by critics, myself included. However, the later novels from the 80s onwards displayed a new trend, continuing on from the 60s and 70s textual experimentation, but focused much more on the play with fictionality, the complex relationship between the real and the invented, the fictional and the historical. This responded to the author's continued engagement with social concerns combined with his awareness of the limitations of his activity to the literary realm. All his work has been an attempt to resolve that dilemma. It so happens that the literature of this later period has coincided with an independent resurgence of interest in the genre of autobiography, now viewed from the perspective of postmodernist theory. This study aims to use the insights provided by that recent critical trend to re-examine and re-define the work of one of Spain's most important literary figures. The intention is to provide a coherent and comprehensive interpretation that will interest not only hispanists and Goytisolo specialists, but those interested in autobiographical criticism, postmodernist theory and literary criticism in general.