Witches
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- HUF2,190.00
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- HUF2,190.00
Publisher Description
A bewitching novel by Brenda Lozano, one of the most prominent voices of the new generation of Latin American writers.
'You can't really know another woman until you know yourself.'
Weaving together two parallel narratives, this is the story of Feliciana, an indigenous curandera (healer), and of Zoë, a journalist: two women drawn together by the murder of Feliciana's cousin Paloma.
In the tiny village of San Felipe in Jalisco province, where traditional ways of life and belief are a present reality, Feliciana tells the story of her life, her community's acceptance of her as a genuine curandera and the difficulties faced by her cousin Paloma who is a Muxe (both male and female), in her case a trans woman.
Growing up in Mexico City, the heart of modern Mexico, Zoë attempts to find her way in a hostile world made for men, as she reflects on what drew her to Feliciana and Paloma, and her own relationship with the innate powers of a curandera.
This extraordinary novel envisions the writer as healer, one who uses El Lenguaje (Language) to read El Libro (The Book) that contains the mystery of the world, and offers a generous and distinctly female way of understanding the complex world we all inhabit.
Translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Mexican writer Lozano (Loop) delivers a layered narrative about healers, storytelling, and family trauma. Feliciana is a curandera, or folk healer, living in a village in San Felipe, Mexico. Zoe, a 30-something Mexico City journalist exhausted by never-ending stories of femicide and rape, nevertheless feels obligated to cover them "from the trench dug at the newsroom," and agrees to report on the murder of Feliciana's cousin Paloma, also a curandera. Zoe is also eager to meet the famous Feliciana, despite having "never been into supernatural stuff." The author alternates between Zoe's urbane narration and transcriptions of her interviews with Feliciana, whose elliptical and mystical language makes for a sharp contrast. A story emerges of Feliciana's and Paloma's struggles to become curanderas in a male-dominated family (Paloma, a Muxe, or third-gendered Zapotec person, was assigned male at birth, and Feliciana's abilities don't match Paloma's, whom Feliciana claims could see the future "like it walked in front of her"). Feliciana demonstrates her power with Zoe, though, by helping her work through her sister's sexual abuse when they were teens. Lozano does a wonderful job distinguishing the disparate characters and their fluid identities, and Cleary's translation strikes the perfect balance of immersion and clarity. Powerful and complex, this marks a new turn from an intriguing writer.
