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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Juan Goytisolo. One of three writing brothers, Juan Goytisolo
lived in voluntary exile in France and Mexico under Franco.
To a foreign audience, he has become the best-known
Spanish author of his generation, a writer who delved into the
desolation of post-Civil War Spain. Often he wrote about
adolescents: his first novel,Juegos de manos(1954), was
about alienated middle-class youth;Duelo en el paraíso(1955)
studied young people during wartime. All of his work was
banned in Spain until after Franco died.
Poetry under Franco
Those poets who didn’t seek exile under Franco worked with
the censorship of the age, using themes like faith and the
natural world to signify their truculence with the regime.
Amid the so-called Generation of the 1950s, a gang of Catalan
poets emerged, grouped loosely as the Escuela de Barcelona.
Meeting at the University of Barcelona, the poets would
discuss their common themes – landscape, the passing of
time, the Civil War and Spain in convalescence. José Agustín
Goytisolo, older brother of the novelist, was in the school, but
Jaime Gil de Biedma, deftly critical of the regime in work like
Companeros de viaje(1959), was the heavyweight among
them.
Versed on a new age: thenovísimos
Toward the end of Franco’s tenure a new group of poets
emerged, thenovísimos, named after José María Castellet’s
anthology,Nueve novísimos poetas españoles(1970).
The new crop were a diverse bunch, some drawing guidance
from the Generation of the 1950s, others looking beyond
Spain for inspiration. Roughly, they shared a desire to
experiment with language and an urge to create something
more contemporary.They mixed literary tradition with popular
culture, anticipating the freedoms that were around the corner.
The majority of thenovisimoscontinued producing poetry
throughout the 1980s and beyond.
