Señas de identidad, published in 1966, is the first of Goytisolo's [Mendiola Trilogy], comprised of his most recent three novels that reflect a new perspective in the writing of fiction in Spain and representing what this study calls his period of maturity. Some of the views that helped shape Señas de identidad, Reivindicación del conde don Julián (1970) and Juan sin tierra [Juan the Landless] (1975) began to be expressed in a collection of critical essays, El furgón de cola, published in 1967. In these essays Goytisolo criticizes the Generation of 1898, the commercialization of Spain, and the mediocrity of most of the novels published after the Civil War. He also comments on the Spanish political conditions which force many novelists to deal with social matters by utilizing their most ingenious techniques to circumvent the censor, and he speculates on the means by which language might be used...