Chronology of Juan Goytisolo’s Travels to the Cuban Revolution: from Fascination to Rupture

Abstract

Juan Goytisolo (1931-2017), great-grandson of a landowner who made his fortune  in the slave-based sugar industry in Cuba, visited the island on three occasions during the first years of the Cuban Revolution: from December 1961 to February 1962, from October 1962 to early 1963, during the nuclear missile crisis, and in the summer of 1967. Based on his Autobiografía, his feature book Pueblo en marcha, his op-ed pieces published in El País and some other documents concerning his stay in Cuba, this article traces the chronology of the Spanish writer’s relationship with one of the most important events of the 20th century. We note that, after the initial support to a Revolution that could serve as a social model against Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, Goytisolo denounced its transformation into a communist tyranny and maintained this criticism until his final days, all the while expressing his nostalgia for Cuba, the country in the Americas that most influenced his life and work.