Blind Rider

By Juan Goytisolo

2004

First Published

3.59

Average Rating

104

Number of Pages

3H10M

Audio Length

In this novel, which Juan Goytisolo has said will be his last, a melancholy, angry old man reviews the precious moments of his life amid the disasters of contemporary history. Years of love end with the death of his wife: their flat, furniture and CDs go, even memories fade. He remembers tender moments with his mother, who was killed in a bomb-blast unleashed by Fascists on Barcelona, the town he was born in. Together they would look at the stars and identify the brightest constellations. For the narrator, the ideal writer is Tolstoy, an enlightened artistocrat who wished to free his serfs and bring up his children with progressive, humanist principles. Tolstoy?s characters embody dreams of a more intense, varied life: through them, the narrator discovers that freedom only exists in books. Like the books of W.G.Sebald and Italo Calvino, Blind Rider is a fictional memoir that spans a history of the last fifty years. Tender at a personal level, it is at a political level an angry rant at God?s lack of humanity: it confirms Goytisolo?s position as one of the most committed writers of our time.

Avg Rating

3.59

Number of Ratings

100

5 STARS

21%

4 STARS

33%

3 STARS

33%

2 STARS

10%

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Juan Goytisolo

Author · 30 books

Desde la trilogía formada por Señas de identidad, Don Julián y Juan sin tierra, que le situó entre los mejores autores de la literatura española contemporánea, la obra narrativa de Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1931) ha derivado en cada nueva singladura hacia territorios inexplorados que cuestionan siempre el género de la ficción. Esta voluntad de ir a contracorriente ha propiciado la gestación de textos tan singulares como Makbara (1980), Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988), La cuarentena (1991), La saga de los Marx (1993), El sitio de los sitios (1995), Las semanas del jardín (1997), Carajicomedia (2000), Telón de boca (2003) o El exiliado de aquí y allá (2008). No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras. ==== Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956. In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality. In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence. He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan\_Goy...