ABOUT
THE BOOK

God works in mysterious ways…and in A Cock-Eyed Comedy, Juan Goytisolo takes on the Spanish Catholic church.
Father Trennes, our hero, is like Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a spirit of the age moving through several centuries of history. His most recent incarnation is as a member of the conservative right wing Catholic organisation, Opus Dei, whose founder, Josemaría Escrivá, has just been canonized.

A cast of historical characters, including philosopher Roland Barthes, Jean Genet and Argentine writer Manuel Puig, meet and mingle with a host of imaginary ones in an orgiastic romp until AIDS takes its toll.