A wicked satire on religion from Spain’s greatest living writer

In A Cock-Eyed Comedy Father Trennes is like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a spirit of the age moving through several centuries of Spain’s history. His most recent incarnation is as an Opus Dei—the conservative right wing Catholic organization—religious leader in present-day Spain, whose conformity Goytisolo delightfully savages.

A cast of real people and invented characters, including the philosopher Roland Barthes. Jean Genet, and the Argentine writer Manuel Puig, are mixed up in a literary and historical melting pot. A Cock-Eyed Comedy is a transgressive dark comedy with a significant message about religion and sexuality.

"Goytisolo delivers. While he's busy poking fun at nearly all of us reading his novel, he's also pulling back the veils of religion, politics, sex and gender we all enjoy wearing." – The San Francisco Chronicle

"Spanish literary trickster Goytisolo exhibits fine satirical form in this bawdy, fictional tale of a Catholic cleric's sexual wanderings across history and borders. . . . This certainly ranks among the acclaimed Spaniard's most overtly lusty gay-themed fables, and Bush's playfully colloquial translation adds plenty of zest." – Publishers Weekly

Juan Goytisolo was born in Barcelona in 1931. Since 1956 he has lived in voluntary exile outside Spain and now lives in Marrakesh. In 2004 he was awarded the prestigious Juan Rulfo International Latin American and Carribean Prize for Literature. His most recent books are State of Siege, The Garden of Secrets, Landscapes of War, and The Marx Family Saga.