Count Julian - Opening

harsh homeland, the falsest, most miserable
imaginable, I shall never return to you: with eyes still
closed, it is there before you, enveloped in the blurry
ubiquity of sleep and thus invisible, but nonetheless
cleverly and subtly suggested, foreshortened and far
in the distance: with even the tiniest bits recognizable,
outlined as you yourself admit, with such scrupulous
accuracy as to border on the maniacal: one day, another,
and yet another: ever the same: a predictable sharpness
of contour, a mere cardboard model, in reduced scale,
of a familiar landscape: burning beneath a fiery sun perhaps?

I dreamed of Tangier, whose proximity fascinated me,
and the prestige of this city that is more or less a favorite
haunt of traitors.

-- JEAN GENET, The Thief's Journal

In their struggle againt the Byzantines and the Berbes,
the Arab chieftains had greatly extended their African
dominions, and as early as the year 682 Uqba had reached
the shores of the Atlanntic, but he was unable to occupy
Tangier, for he was forced to turn back toward the Atlas
Mountains by a mysterious person who Moslem
historians almost always refer to as Ulyan, though his
real name was probably Julian, or perhaps Urban or
Ulban or Bulian. Soon thereafter he became a legendary
figure, known as "Count Julian". We are not certain
whether he was a Berber, a Visigoth, or a Byzantine; as
a "count" he may have been the ruler of the fortress of
Septem, once part of the Visigoth kingdom; or he may
have been an exarch or a governor ruling in the name of
the Byzantine Empire: oor, as appears more likely, he may
have been a Berber who was the lord and master of the
Catholic tribe of Gomera ...

- L. G. DE V., Historia de Espana

Reivindicacion del Conde Don Julian
Editorial Joaquin Mortiz, S.A., 1970

Don Julian
Editions Gallima 1971

English language translation Copyright 1974
by The Viking Press, Inc.
All rights reserved
A Richard Seaver Book/The Viking Press
Published in 1974 by The Viking Press, Inc.
625 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10022
Published simultaneously in Canada by
The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited
SBN 670-24407-4
Printed in U.S.A