In Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian nationalism, Goytisolo found a strong echo of Spanish fascism of the '40s. His Sarajevo notebooks form part of Landscapes of War , together with reportage from Algeria, Chechnya, the West Bank and Gaza. Spain's expulsions of Jews and Muslims were, for Goytisolo, a precursor of today's ethnic cleansings. The Garden of Secrets is an homage both to Jorge Luis Borges and to Cervantes, who was held captive in north Africa and drew on One Thousand and One Nights in inventing the modern European novel. Goytisolo questions the idea of authorship.
Fiction is the best way to escape from dogmatism.
If there's no reliable author, there's no authority. I'm against authoritarianism. Jaggi is an award-winning journalist and critic based in London who writes for the Guardian newspaper. Subscribe Copyright 2001. All rights reserved.