Juan Goytisolo’s «Don Julián», after «vindication»

Abstract

The novel, Reivindicación del Conde don Julián by Juan Goytisolo (1931-2017), which focused on «creative destruction», and was published for the first time in Mexico in 1970, was subject to a definitive edition in early 2001. The author modified the original title of the novel and shortened it to Don Julián. This fact raises questions that lead us to interrogate the perception and the (re)reading that Juan Goytisolo may have adopted in relation to his novel’s many ruptures, thirty years after its initial publication. These issues are examined in light of the evolution of his writerly figure considered as «heterodox» and in relationship to his subsequent literary work and to Spain.