SOURCE: “Thinking Otherwise,” in New Statesman and Society, Vol. 5, No. 229, November 20, 1992, pp. 39-40.

In the following review, Hopkinson praises Goytisolo's “impressively catholic selections” from his collection of essays, Saracen Chronicles, but complains that the author has overlooked women and Christian sources.

“A preponderance of great writers have lived outside their own countries and I believe that this has many advantages. In the first place, it allows you to see your own country with both intimacy and distance. Then you also come to view your own culture through the perspective of others. And, thirdly, living abroad allows you to forget somewhat about the values of your tribe and establish your own scale of values.”

Juan Goytisolo is acclaimed as one of the greatest living writers, perhaps Spain's most successful “alienated author”. A victim of Franco's censorship, directed at the Turin group of writers he helped found, Goytisolo left his...