Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya

Rate this book
Landscapes of From Sarajevo to Chechnya is an incisive examination of the tensions that exist between the West and Islamic societies of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. These essays, originating in Goytisolo's travels in the late 1990s, provide rich historical analysis and moving first-person reportage of life in four explosive Sarajevo, Algeria, the West Bank and Gaza, and Chechnya. From the 17th century to the Gulf War, the West has regarded Islam as the enemy on the doorstep, and this book elucidates how relations between Islam and the West continue to be shaped in a climate of ideological, political and cultural confrontation.

Goytisolo examines the fratricidal frenzy in Algeria and the war waged by French police against North African migrants in France, and he describes a besieged Sarajevo transformed into a concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire. He contemplates the despair and poverty of Palestinian youth living in the Occupied Territories and details the brutality of the Russian war in the Caucasus. Whether reporting on the fate of the Bosnians after the break up of the former Yugoslavia or analyzing the growing appeal of fundamentalisms—Islamic, Jewish and Russian Orthodox—Goytisolo displays the same blend of intelligence, vision, and warm fellow-feeling that has made him one the most imposing literary figures of our time.

Many of these succinct and eloquent essays first appeared in Spain's leading newspaper El Pais, and English translations were published in the Times Literary Supplement (London).

Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. In 1993 he was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize for his literary achievement and contribution to world culture. His translated works include a two volume autobiography, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife; the trilogy Marks of Identity, Count Julian and Juan the Landless; and the essays, Saracen Chronicles. Other works by him and published by City Lights Publishers include The Marx Family Saga, published in 1999, and A Cock-Eyed Comedy, published in 2005.

Peter Bush is Director of the British Center for Literary Translation and translated Juan Goytisolo's The Marx Family Saga, which was awarded the Premio Valle-Inclan.

220 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

Loading...
Loading...

About the author

Juan Goytisolo

180 books178 followers
Desde la trilogía formada por Señas de identidad, Don Julián y Juan sin tierra, que le situó entre los mejores autores de la literatura española contemporánea, la obra narrativa de Juan Goytisolo (Barcelona, 1931) ha derivado en cada nueva singladura hacia territorios inexplorados que cuestionan siempre el género de la ficción. Esta voluntad de ir a contracorriente ha propiciado la gestación de textos tan singulares como Makbara (1980), Las virtudes del pájaro solitario (1988), La cuarentena (1991), La saga de los Marx (1993), El sitio de los sitios (1995), Las semanas del jardín (1997), Carajicomedia (2000), Telón de boca (2003) o El exiliado de aquí y allá (2008).

No obstante, Juan Goytisolo no destaca sólo como autor de ficción, sino que también cultiva con maestría el género del ensayo, con obras como Contra las sagradas formas (2007) o Genet en el Raval (2009). En 2014 se le ha otorgado el Premio Cervantes de las Letras.

========

Juan Goytisolo Gay was born in Barcelona at 1931. A vocal opponent of Franco, he left Spain for France in 1956.

In Paris, he worked as a consultant for the publisher Gallimard while he was also working on his own oeuvre. There he met his future wife, Monique Langue, and Jean Genet, who influenced his vision of literature. While living in Paris, he started the most experimental side of his books. Mixing poetry with painting and fiction with non-fiction, he explored the possibilities of language, leaving behind the social commentary of his first novels. "Marks of Identity" was the start, but then he turned even more radical with "Count Julian" and "Juan the Landless", where he rejected definitely, because of a lack of identification, his Spanish identity in favor of adopting a "cervantina" nationality.

In the 1970s he visited Marrakech often. In 1981 he bought a house there. In 1996, after the death of his wife, he moved there and adopted Morocco as his main residence.

He is widely considered one of the most important Spanish authors of his time. His brothers, José Agustín Goytisolo and Luis Goytisolo, are also writers. In 2008 he won Spain's Premio Nacional de las Letras and in 2014 the Cervantes Prize.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Goy...

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
15 (24%)
4 stars
37 (59%)
3 stars
7 (11%)
2 stars
3 (4%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
Profile Image for Brett C.
981 reviews248 followers
February 2, 2009
An important book on the comparatives of Islam and the Western ideology. The four parts of the book focuses on the Bosnian Civil War, war in Algeria, war in Chechnya, and the violence in the Palestinian territories. Juan Goytisolo argues how conflict in these parts of the world stem from the ideological overall picture of Islam and the West, particularly with political and cultural. An informative book on four geographical areas plagues by inter-ethnic and religious violence. Great for a class on modern international affairs or to open you up to the world around us.
Profile Image for Phrodrick .
1,145 reviews88 followers
June 30, 2024
Hard to read. Important to read

Reading Juan Goytisolo’s Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya was hard for several reason. Most importantly and the reason why it should be read is that he definitely takes a side and just as defiantly refuses to play back the more typical western version of the events upon which he is reporting. He takes sides, and may do so absent any careful case for why and why he preference is Muslim over non- Muslim. These essays represent his reporting, always from the front and on the ground, in 1990’s Sarajevo, Algeria, the West Bank and Gaza, and Chechnya. His is a POV you may not find in most, any<?> English language source and if for only that reason it is important if your goal is an informed opinion.

As should be the case the point is never do you agree or disagree, but is your opinion sufficiently informed without seriously considering the content and people within these essays.

The most trivial reason why this was a hard read is that this is reporting on the ground and at the front of wars among people with names hard for a westerner to pronounce in place rarely spoken about. The combatants have each have their own language, within the rebellions and in describing each other. This will take some time and effort.

Lastly, the manner in which the book is published present the reader with solid pages of small font text. A few much need maps might help to break things up, but dense pages suggest the publisher City Lights books, Lawrence Ferlinghetti ( Author A Coney Island of the Mind) and Nancy Peters may not be experienced with publishing for a wider audience. City Lights is better known for its list of distinguished poets.
Profile Image for Jonfaith.
2,260 reviews1,835 followers
October 28, 2012
This is an antipode of Kapuściński. The Polish master found poetry in the ruins of the human condition. Goytisolo builds brick and mortar monuments chieseled with proing questions. This collection of dispatches scans a series of eruptions in the 1990s all concerning Muslims: Bosnia, Occupied Palestine, Algeria and Chechnya. The Sarajevo section is the most emotional, the least constructed.

Goytisolo concludes the survey with a challenging parallel; he diagnoses the misteps Spain undertook in the 15tth through 19th Centuries. He then compares this to a recent history of North Africa and the Middle east. Despite being published in book form in 2000, the insights are rather precisent, especially given the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria.
Profile Image for Matías Rodríguez.
31 reviews
December 3, 2025
Estuve en Sarajevo antes de leer este libro, que es una recopilación de las notas periodísticas del autor durante la guerra, y es un gran acercamiento a lo que fue el conflicto de Bosnia y a los padecimientos de los ciudadanos durante al asedio.
13 reviews1 follower
Read
June 13, 2025
Lo compré para leer la parte de Palestina, al final, es la que menos me ha enganchado; sin embargo, la de Sarajevo y Chechenia .. son muy impacctantes
Profile Image for Jasper Meer.
12 reviews1 follower
August 17, 2007
Al has a great list of really superb books, and he loaned a copy of this collection of Goytisolo's essays from the Spanish newspaper El Pais to me. Goytisolo's prose is sharp and bright; his reporting is partisan and objective, presenting dead-on evaluations substantiated by real, on-the-ground journalism. Would that American journalists possessed the wit and wherewithal to write as well as Goytisolo. Our fourth estate is still crippled by the uncritical stenographic school of he-said-she-said reporting that has so damaged our Republic, but I digress.

In the "Sarajevo Notebook" section, Goytisolo helped me better understand the significance of the Yugoslavian genocide in the context of Western and Middle Eastern relations, as well as better contrast President Clinton's Internationalist and Humanitarian intervention in Yugoslavia against President Bush's Unilateral and Neoconservative invasion of Iraq. But I'm not being specific in my arguments, so it's probably better to let Goytisolo's own voice convince you to pick up this excellent book:

If the Komites, Haydukes, and Chetniks were never punished for their assaults on Muslims in the last two centuries, why should they be punished now by a European Union that is falling apart, victim of the contradictions, small-mindedness, and egoism of its own architects? On the new map of the Balkans, drawn in blood and fire by the defenders of the primacy of national, religious values, the mere name of Sarajevo symbolizes the existence of a cosmopolitanism that is hated and seen as an affront: a space for encounters and convergence, a point where differences rather than being a reason for exclusion mingle and cross-fertilize through osmosis and permeability. The Bosnian capital embodies... a distinct, stimulating, open concept of a European city. Blind, deaf, and dumb, we are allowing it to be destroyed.

One only has to cross the trickle of the Milyacka River by the bridge near the library to be in the heart of the left bank coveted by the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia," the small Jewish community gathered around the synagogue. There is a long queue of people in the street overlooked by its pink, ochre facade, large windows, rosaces, and domes capped by the six-pointed star...

David Kamhi, vice president of the Jewish Humanitarian, Cultural and Education Society is a violinist and looks just like a member of a Spanish provincial casino: bald-headed, lively, bespectacled, like those sitting among the smoke and noise of their countrymen opposite a stack of cards or a domino board. His Spanish- "not Ladino but [Sephardic] Spanish" - he points out is amazingly rich and modern. David Kamhi is a descendent of the Jews expelled from the Peninsula in 1492 who spread through the lands of the Ottoman Empire and settled in Sarajevo in 1551.

"Before the Nazis arrived there were 14,000 of us, 10,000 Sephardic Jews. Most died when deported. Of those who escaped some remained hidden in the city, others came back at the end of the war.

"In April 1992, the community had 1,400 members, mainly Sephardic as I am. When religious restrictions came to an end with the death of Tito, many people discovered their Jewish roots and moved close to us. There were 700 in the autumn of last year when the siege was established. Now there are about as many of us who have refused to leave.

"In Bosnia there were very good relations between the religious communities. They used to call Sarajevo Little Jerusalem. Muslim lads worked and learned their trades in our workshops. Sarajevo is a mixture: multicultural, multiconfessional, and multinational. In this neighborhood of Sarajevo, the synagogue is a few steps from the mosque, which is a few steps from the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Now we have been put in a ghetto, in a concentration camp of 380,000 people. It's unbelievable that Europe should allow this after the Nazi genocide!"
Profile Image for Esteban.
84 reviews
August 29, 2019
La calidad en la escritura del autor es directamente proporcional a su devoción por todo lo que tenga que ver con la religión islámica y sus estandartes de diversa índole. Por lo tanto, la factura de lo que aquí se relata es tan grande como la parcialidad del autor por uno de los bandos en conflicto y además un buen pretexto para rociar el escrito con gotas negrolegendarias -término que se lo reservo a los que se lo achacan y solo lo cito aquí mas no me atrevo a acuñarlo del todo-. Es testimonio, crónica, con una buena parte (los dos primeros capítulos y el final) de análisis literario, como si se pudiera equiparar la ficción con la realidad (aunque dudo que el autor lo haga a propósito, es por gajes del oficio y/o por coincidencia -muy ad hoc en todo caso- que se sirve de citar a Tolstoi o a Lérmontov y sus escenarios como contemporáneos del escenario que el autor pisa. Sin duda que la incursión rusa fue execrable (aunque como algunos ideólogos de derecha de closet argumentarían que fue por defender la "eutaxia" lo que sea que eso signifique, y en todo caso, según y quien gobierne) y las imágenes transmitidas por el autor lo confirman, que queda aún esa sensación de un aire buenista, algo ingenuo del intelectual comprometido, sin embargo, es culpa del lector que le de alcances de análisis político a su testimonio -cosa que el autor no pretende- cuando no es otra cosa que una puesta de presente de arbitrariedades a las que se encuentra sometida una población (con cuyo credo uno pueda simpatizar más o menos) sin duda injustamente, pero que por razones de geografía y geopolítica, a las potencias ni le va ni les viene.

NOTA: Recomiendo altamente, para esta edición, empezar por el apéndice y luego continuar normalmente con el texto; me resultó más esclarecedor. El artículo "Aporías rusas" de Antonio Pérez Ramos al que remite el autor, no sólo no tiene desperdicio sino que es de una actualidad escalofriante.
Profile Image for Tomoho.
39 reviews1 follower
February 14, 2009
かつて、この本が刊行されてほどなく、阪神淡路大震災が起こった。
ちょうど神戸のかたわらでサラエヴォを読む格好になってしまったわけだが、未曾有の自然災害——とはいえ、その後に被災地の状況を知るにつけ、その被害を拡大したのはそれまでの都市政策とその後の罹災者対策を要因とした人災、ないしは「官災」と呼ぶべきものだったことが明らかとなったが——を被った被災地の姿が、この不条理な破壊と殺戮の続いていた戦地の姿と奇妙に重なっていたことが印象に残っている。

それから14年あまり。メディアはイスラエル軍によるガザ空爆のニューズを刻々と伝えている。
だが、マス・メディアが伝えるイスラエル政府の「テロへの報復」との名目とはうらはらに、その実態は自治政府庁舎や行政関連施設はもとより、警察署、放送局、病院、学校、モスク等を主要な攻撃目標とした社会インフラの破壊と、それにともなっての無差別殺戮が続いている(その一例として、次のリポートを参照:http://blog.livedoor.jp/offtrap/archi...)。
日々、子供や老人を多く含む人々が、ただ「パレスチナ人である」というそのことだけで殺戮されているのだ(しかもそのほとんどが民間人だ!)。

その災厄を目の前にしながら、しかし、この光景に奇妙な既視感を感じるのは、おそらく私だけではないだろう。
そう、世界が孤立させたかつての国際都市で、恐怖と悲惨の中に生きる人々の姿をフアン・ゴンティソーロが身を投じてリポートした本書に描き出された戦火のサラエヴォと、現在のガザの姿はまさに瓜二つなのだ。
ひとつの都市を完全に外部から封鎖し、医療施設や、共同体の拠り所であるとともに教育や情報の拠点として社会ソフトウェアの基幹となるインフラを徹底的に破壊するこのやり方は、もはやその都市そのものの虐殺にほかならない。それは、人の生きる場所とそこで人々に共有された記憶の一切を破壊する、根源的なテロリズムの欲望であると言えるだろう。

そのような暴力に曝されながら、人々がそこで生きるということがどういうことなのか、本書は苦い過去の経験を、私たち自身の〈現在〉の問いとして突きつけてくるだろう。

なお、ゴンティソーロはこの後、『パレスチナ日記』(みすず書房刊)を著している。
これも邦訳刊行から既に10年が経過しているが、「イスラエルの空爆は許されないが、そもそもテロを先に仕掛けたハマースが悪い」と主張する人には、田浪亜央江著『〈不在者〉たちのイスラエル——占領文化とパレスチナ』(インパクト出版会刊)とともに、ぜひ手に取って一読してほしい。

私たちは、無自覚な無知に居直る前にまず、「知る」ことから学ばなければならない。
23 reviews8 followers
Read
October 9, 2010
the mighty writer susan sontag written the introduction it all about supremacy over the minority Muslim's in Europe a killing mayhem a party
Profile Image for Yureimy.
13 reviews
May 26, 2018
Te adentra en la vida de aquellos que sufrieron tal barbarie... Impactante
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews