Makbara (A Masks Title)

Juan Goytisolo is by some distance the most important living novelist from Spain? Guardian 'In Juan the Landless, the fury subsides, giving way to indifference to the homeland and the blossoming of love for the Muslim world. One awaits this final stage with impatience (TLS)

Juan Goytisolo is, undoubtedly, the greatest living Spanish novelist... He is forced to swallow the words he hates in order to excrete them with coprophilous pleasure: did not Jonathan Swift, in his time do something comparable with the English verbal tradition? Swift, Goytisolo; Joyce, Goytisolo; exiles condemned to live with the language of their oppressions, digest it, expel it, trample on it, and then resign themselves (Carlos Fuentes)

In Arabic, the word 'Makbara' refers to those parts of North African cemeteries where young couples go to get away from their elders and hang out. A celebration of Amour Fou, Makbara reveals Goytisolo's deep love for Arabic culture seen as sensuous and lewd in contrast to the drab sterility of the West. In a series of scenes, pastiches and travelling shots, Goytisolo exposes cultural, sexual and political oppression. The author's message is of liberation through sex which, as he says, 'is above all freedom'.