This sequel to "Marks of Identity" is the middle volume of a trilogy from the popular Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo. From his exile in Tangiers, the narrator fulminates against Spain, the country he has been forced to leave, and dreams of invading his fatherland and destroying it completely.

Legend has it that Count Julian opened the gates of Spain to the Moorish invaders and introduced eight hundred years of Islamic influence. The narrator dreams of another invasion of his fatherland. Destruction will be total - myths central to the Hispanic psyche will crumble: the myth of the Christian knight always ready to do battle to defend the faith, the myth of the macho male and its inverse the virgin female, and the myth of the heroic Spanish personality forged in the rout of Islam. The hatred of Spain is intense but it is a hatred that recognizes the debt the exile owes to his homeland.