The gray Barcelona of good schools and gazmoñería with American cheese. The Parisian exile of vaguely existentialist cafés and unheated 'chambres de bonne'. The imaginary of 'La guerre est finie', Ruedo Ibérico and the long wait. And then, the light of the other shore and the souks of Marrakesh. Something like that remained in the report when they explained the figure of Juan Goytisolo (1931) in the high school diplomaIn a portrait elaborated from 'Señas de identidad' (1966) and his autobiography, divided between 'Coto cerrado' (1985) and 'En los reinos de Taifa' (1986). A stateless person in the style of Blanco White or Count Don Julián, with whom he wanted to identify himself so much, would become the writer. A Juan sin Tierra, as one of his titles says, delighted to fit to the millimeter with the phenotype of Menéndez Pelayo's heterodox. Someone who, from his furious criticism of the bourgeoisie, national Catholicism and the Franco regime, was almost condemned to take the door of exile in 1956. His has been a voice determined to remind us, like Cernuda, that "without roots it is better". That Goytisolo should receive the Cervantes award today has an ironic aftertaste, in that game of recomposition of the canon that often hides the list of winners of these awards.

This does not tarnish the justice of award. From his novels in the line of a social realism demanded by circumstances -Juegosde manos ( 1954), Duelo en el Paraíso (1955), El circo ( 1957), La resaca ( 1958)- to his essays -Problemasde la novela (1959), El furgón de cola ( 1967), Disidencias ( 1977), Crónicas sarrazinas ( 1981)- , Goytisolo has not ceased to work from that critical viewpoint, to the point of widening the circles of his vision far beyond what that portrait would suggest: the era of the single thought, the Spain of the Fifth Centenary, the Balkan war, the future of Arab culture, the difficult coexistence under the umbrella of the 'laïcité'... An enemy of fixed and stagnant identities, Goytisolo is above all a writer who is no friend of verbal preciosity and who is constantly vigilant of his instrument: language. An inhabitant of the 'limes', or of the periphery, who from there contemplates civilizations in their bloody dialogue and defines himself as 'An exile from here and there', in his latest novel. A man in search of the view from the outside, which may exist but -it should be remembered- is certainly not the view from anywhere.