After law studies, Goytisolo published his first novel,
The Young Assassins, in 1954. In 1956 he performed six months of military service in
Mataró, which inspired some of his early stories. His deep opposition to
Francisco Franco led him into exile in Paris later that same year, where he worked as a reader for
Gallimard. In the early 1960s, he was a friend of
Guy Debord. From 1969 to 1975 he worked as a literature professor in universities in
California,
Boston, and
New York. Breaking with the realism of his earlier novels, he published
Marks of Identity (1966),
Count Julian (1970), and
Juan the Landless (1975). During his tenure as a professor he also worked on his controversial Spanish translation of the works of
José María Blanco White, which he published in part as a critique of
Francoist Spain. As with all his works, they were banned in Spain until after Franco's death. In 2012, Goytisolo confirmed that he was finished writing novels, saying he had nothing more to write and that it was better he kept quiet. He continued, however, to publish essays and some poetry.
Count Julian (1970, 1971, 1974) takes up, in an act of outspoken defiance, the side of
Julian, count of Ceuta, a man traditionally castigated as the ultimate
traitor in Spanish history. In Goytisolo's own words, he imagines "the destruction of Spanish mythology, its Catholicism and nationalism, in a literary attack on traditional Spain." He identifies himself "with the great traitor who opened the door to Arab invasion." The narrator in this novel, an exile in North Africa, rages against his beloved Spain, forming an obsessive identification with the fabled Count Julian, dreaming that, in a future invasion, the ethos and myths central to Hispanic identity will be totally destroyed. ==Family==