“The story Arrabal tells is a sad, curious one. A Spanish Republican serving in the army, his father was arrested and condemned to death by the fascists in 1936, when Arrabal himself was only four years old. Feeling that her husband had put politics before family, Arrabal’s mother led her son to believe that his father was dead. It was only in his adolescence that Arrabal discovered that his father’s deathsentence had been commuted to life in prison, that he had escaped in 1941, and had never been heard of since. His father assumed heroic proportions in Arrabal’s personal mythology: "Je l'imaginais tel un Quichotte. Comme un bouc emissaire. Comme le module que je me devais d'imiter.”“ - Warren Motte on Arrabal’s book, Porte Disparu
Photo: Fernando Arrabal, München 1996 © Sabine Matthes
