Fear and Gendering: Pedophobia, Effeminophobia, and Hypermasculine Desire in the Work of Juan Goytisolo

Fear and Gendering addresses the interaction of phobia, gender, and reproduction in a representative cross-section of work by the iconoclastic contemporary Spanish novelist, Juan Goytisolo. This book asks how fear - of effeminacy and of childishness - works as an organizing principle in the evolution of Goytisolo’s prose. The nexus of fear, desire, and reproduction is examined in Reivindicacion del Conde don Julian (1970), Makbara (1980), La cuarentena (1991), and Cuaderno de Sarajevo (1993). Through an unprecedented reading of Goytisolo’s juvenilia, the study adopts an interrogative approach to the novelist’s account of discrete adult and puerile identities. Informed by a lively attention to recent work in the field of cultural studies, Fear and Gendering looks afresh at some of Goytisolo’s best and lesser known works.