Realism, Myth and Spiritual Mestizaje in Las malas by Camila Sosa Villada

Abstract

Abstract: By reclaiming the power of self-definition and the use of the term travesti to designate their unique experience within the Latin American cultural, economic, and political context, travesti intellectuals have fought the dehumanization of their personhood. In her novel Las malas , the Argentine author Camila Sosa Villada not only reclaims the right to self-definition but also connects the realistic accounts of human rights violations against travesti subjects with the spiritual, mythical, and religious roots of the travesti experience. To make these connections, Sosa Villada appropriates magical realism, a literary mode that provides the space to naturalize the presence of travesti subjects as protagonists of folktales, miracles, and religious narratives while denouncing violence against travesti bodies. In this way, the author unveils and corrects the dichotomic nature of cultural narratives that exclude travesti and trans subjects from religious and cultural spaces in Latin America. Moreover, by rewriting folktales and religious narratives, and by situating travestis as protagonists of narratives of miracles, Sosa Villada deploys "spiritual mestizaje" that dignifies and humanizes travesti personhood, opening previously proscribed spaces for these agents. In this way, Sosa Villada not only disrupts and expands the literary tradition of magical realism by adding the travesti experience to the predominantly heteronormative corpus of magical-realist narratives but exercises religious agency.