Witches

This is the story of who Feliciana is, and of who Paloma was.

I had wanted to get to know them, but I realised right away that the people I needed to know better were my sister Leandra and my mother. Myself. I came to understand that you can't really know another woman until you know yourself ...

In the tiny village of San Felipe in Jalisco province, where traditional ways and traditional beliefs are a present reality, indigenous healer Feliciana narrates the story of her life, from her community's acceptance of her as a genuine curandera to the difficult choices faced by her joyful and spirited cousin Paloma, who had to give up being a healer to realise her gender identity as Muxe.

Zoe, a journalist from Mexico City, attempts to find her way in a society straitjacketed by its hostile macho culture. Hearing of Paloma's murder, Zoe heads to San Felipe to cover her death and interview Paloma's famous curandera cousin, Feliciana. But Feliciana and her memories of Paloma will take Zoe on a journey to understanding her own place in the world and the power of her voice.

Weaving together two parallel narratives, this captivating novel of two Mexico’s envisions the writer as a healer and offers a generous and distinctly female way of understanding the complex world we all inhabit.

 

"Beautiful, brutal and beguiling" CHLOE ARIDJIS

 

"Highly original, beautifully written and graced with a hypnotically compelling narrative style. A remarkable book" JON LEE ANDERSON

 

"Witches belongs to unknown realms but also builds bridges between worlds - it knits kinships and illuminates ancestral knowledge still present today" GABRIELA JAUREGUI

 

Brenda Lozano was born in Mexico City in 1981. A writer and essayist, she contributes to Letras Libres, among other publications. She studied Latin American Literature. She has been in the Young Creators program of the National Fund for Culture and the Arts. She has been anthologized numerous times. Todo nada (Tusquets, 2009) is her first novel.