José Agustín Goytisolo
Encyclopedia
José Agustín Goytisolo Gay, (Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, 13 April 1928 – 19 March 1999), was a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 poet, scholar and essayist. He was the brother of Juan Goytisolo
Juan Goytisolo
Juan Goytisolo is a Spanish poet, essayist, and novelist. He currently lives in a voluntary self-exile in Marrakech.-Background:Juan Goytisolo was born to an aristocratic family...

 and Luis Goytisolo, also writers.

Biography

Born in Barcelona on 13 April 1928, in a bourgeois Spanish-only speaking family (that is, not Catalan-speaking), his family was brutally shaken by the death of his mother (Julia Gay) in a francoist bombardment in 1938. José Agustín was specially affected, and named her daughter after his lost mother. In Words for Julia, one of his best-known poems (sung by Paco Ibáñez
Paco Ibáñez
Francisco "Paco" Ibáñez is a Spanish singer and musician born in Valencia on November 20, 1934, before the Spanish Civil War.He went to France in 1952 during the Franco dictatorship in Spain and recorded his first album in 1964....

 and Los Suaves
Los Suaves
Los Suaves is a Spanish rock band from Ourense, Galicia. The band was founded in the 1980s by the Domínguez brothers: Charly, bassist and Yosi Domínguez, vocalist....

, among others), he joins the love for both women. In 1993, in the Elegies to Julia Gray, he united all his mother-themed poems. He also deals with his feelings toward his mother in his later books The return (1955) and End of a goodbye (1984).

He started studying Law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

 in the University of Barcelona
University of Barcelona
The University of Barcelona is a public university located in the city of Barcelona, Catalonia in Spain. It is a member of the Coimbra Group, LERU, European University Association, Mediterranean Universities Union, International Research Universities Network and Vives Network...

, and ended his studies in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

. He was a member of the so-called "Generation of the 50s", along with writers such as Ángel González, José Manuel Caballero
José Manuel Caballero
José Manuel Caballero Bonald is a Spanish novelist, lecturer and poet.-Early life:He was born in calle Caballeros, Jerez Spain. His father was Plácido Caballero, a Cuban whose mother was of European descent and whose father was from Cantabria...

, José Ángel Valente and Jaime Gil de Biedma
Jaime Gil de Biedma
Jaime Gil de Biedma y Alba was a Spanish post-Civil War poet.He was born in Nava de la Asunción on November 13, 1929. He stopped writing poetry some ten years before his death...

. They shared a moral or politic commitment and a renewed attention to the lyrics and the language.

According to Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán was a prolific Spanish writer: journalist, novelist, poet, essayist, anthologue, prologist, humourist, critic, as well as a gastronome and a FC Barcelona supporter....

, Goytisolo's poetry was not just an ideological substitute for the capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 of Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

's regime, but aspired to build a new humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

:
Tu destino está en los demás
tu futuro es tu propia vida
tu dignidad es la de todos

Your destiny is in the others
your future is your own life
your dignity is that of all of us

Works

  • El retorno 1955
  • Salmos al viento 1956
  • Claridad 1959
  • Años decisivos 1961
  • Algo sucede 1968
  • Bajo tolerancia 1973
  • Taller de Arquitectura 1976
  • Del tiempo y del olvido 1977
  • Palabras para Julia 1979
  • Los pasos del cazador 1980
  • A veces gran amor 1981
  • Sobre las circunstancias 1983
  • Final de un adiós 1984
  • Como los trenes de la noche 1994
  • Cuadernos de El Escorial 1995
  • Elegías a Julia Gay 1993

Antologies

  • Poetas catalanes contemporáneos 1968
  • Poesía cubana de la Revolución 1970
  • Antología de José Lezama Lima
    José Lezama Lima
    José Lezama Lima was a Cuban writer and poet who is considered one of the most influential figures in Latin American literature....

  • Antología de Jorge Luis Borges
    Jorge Luis Borges
    Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

  • Los poemas son mi orgullo, poetic antology. Edition by Carme Riera
    Carme riera
    Carme Riera Guilera is a novelist and essayist. She has also written short stories, scripts for radio and television, and works of literary criticism...

     (Lumen publishing, 2003)

Translations

He was involved in important translations from Italian and Catalan to Spanish. The translated, among others, works by Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese
Cesare Pavese was an Italian poet, novelist, literary critic and translator; he is widely considered among the major authors of the 20th century in his home country.- Early life and education :...

, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...

, Salvador Espriu
Salvador Espriu
Salvador Espriu i Castelló was a Catalan poet writing in the Catalan language.-Biography:Espriu was born in Santa Coloma de Farners, Catalonia. He was the son of an attorney. His childhood was divided between his home town, Barcelona, and Arenys de Mar, a village on the Maresme coast...

 and Pere Quart.

Sources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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