March 1, 2022
In this new work from Mexican writer Lozano, whose Loop won the PEN Translation Prize, reporter Zo� travels from Mexico City to San Felipe to investigate the murder of Paloma, a muxe--that is, she belongs to a self-identifying third gender among the Indigenous people of Oaxaca, assigned male at birth and embracing dress and behavior typically associated with women. Before she became Paloma, she was Gaspar, a curandero (or traditional healer) who taught cousin Feliciana the secrets of her art. Examining Paloma's death while learning how Feliciana has struggled to be accepted as a healer deepens Zo�'s understanding of her own hard experiences as a woman.
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May 16, 2022
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.
July 1, 2022
As females living under a patriarchy, three very different women from almost completely opposite cultural backgrounds triangulate in acclaimed Mexican writer Lozano's latest novel. Feliciana is a witch of international renown modelled on Mar�a Sabina, the famed Mazatec sacred mushroom curandera. From humble, Indigenous roots and descended from a long line of male healers, Feliciana lives in a tiny village. Her teacher, Paloma, a Muxe or transwoman, is murdered and Zoe, a journalist from Mexico City, comes to interview Feliciana. This interview provides the heart of the novel and reveals as much about Zoe and her family, including her sister's rape and and the trauma it causes, as it does about Feliciana and Paloma. Lozano published the original version of this novel amid a cultural crisis in Mexico as fury over femicide reached a crescendo. Translator Cleary has made a Herculean effort to craft an equivalent experience for English readers to offer ""a chance to connect across and through differences"" in the spirit of Lozano's memorable tale.
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Starred review from August 1, 2022
An aging faith healer recounts practicing her calling amid gender-based violence, loss, celebrity, and murder in Mexican author Lozano's second novel to appear in English. In Feliciana's poor, hardworking family, the gift of healing is passed from fathers to sons, not daughters. It's her cousin Paloma who teaches her the art, shot through with Christian faith, and the herbs and mushrooms to use. Born male, Paloma is Muxe--a third gender accepted among the Zapotec people since pre-colonial times. Once she began to identify this way, changed her name, and began to sleep with men, she gave up being a curandero and began to train Feliciana, who goes on to achieve worldwide renown. Narrated from the alternating points of view of Feliciana and Zoe, a journalist who's interviewing her, the stories weave around both women's struggles to find their voices and make their own ways. Feliciana endures a hardscrabble childhood and an alcoholic husband, then other people's jealousy at her success. Zoe grieves her late father and deferred dreams. But the most vibrant character is Paloma, whose murder is reported in the first sentence. Earlier, having been beaten for being Muxe and left with a scar on her face, she wore a brooch to call attention to it: "We don't hide our scars, we show them off." As in Loop (2021), Lozano eschews traditional narrative for the discursive pleasures of voice. "Paloma once said to me, she said, Feliciana, love, shaman, curandera, witch, those words are all too small for you because yours is the Language, you are the curandera of the Language, and yours too is the Book. And Paloma also said once, Feliciana, love, it's not always necessary to cure mankind because men aren't always ill, but men are always necessary and good for what ails the Muxe in me, dear." A sensitive, informative translator's note explains that Feliciana is loosely based on a Oaxacan curandera internationally famous in the 1950s and '60s. A fascinating immersion into a little-known world, written with tenderness and humanity.
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August 1, 2022
A Hay Festival and Bogot� 39 honoree, Mexican author Lozano (Loop) tells the story of Indigenous Mexican healer Feliciana and Zoe, a journalist interviewing Feliciana about the murder of her cousin Paloma. They come from wildly different cultures--Feliciana belongs to an agrarian society with strictly defined gender roles, while Zoe enjoys a contemporary urban lifestyle in Mexico City--their lives hold parallels; they are both quiet rebels, while Paloma and Zoe's rebellious sister Leandra stand out as vivid characters who defy societal strictures more boldly. There is little traditional plot but instead two overlapping narratives that merge and converge in unexpected ways. Zoe's straightforward narrative contrasts with Feliciana's, which features long, elliptical sentences and many repeated phrases, and the significance of some events mentioned frequently in passing only become clear toward the end. Paloma is a Muxe, a self-identifying third gender among the Zapotec people of Oaxaca, and it's worth reading Cleary's translator's note to see why she retained some cultural words without translating, and how she dealt with gender when using terms that traditionally only refer to males or females but here are used to describe characters across the gender spectrum. VERDICT Beautifully rendered, this is a book to meditate over and perhaps reread.--Christine DeZelar-Tiedman
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