Transvestism, Masculinity, and Latin American Literature

This book is about transvestism and the performance of gender in Latin American literature and culture. Ben. Sifuentes-Jáuregui explores the figure of the transvestite and his/her relation to the body through a series of canonical Latin American texts. By analyzing works by Alejo Carpentier, José Donoso, Severo Sarduy and Manuel Puig (author of Kiss of the Spiderwoma n), alongside critical works in gender studies and queer theory, Sifuentes-Jáuregui shows how transvestism operates not only to destabilize, but often to affirm sexual, gender, national and political identities.

'A truly exceptional and extraordinarily acute reflection on transvestism and the performance of gender....' - Sylvia Molloy, President of the Modern Language Association & Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at New York University

BEN. SIFUENTES-JÁUREGUI is Assistant Professor of Latin American literature at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where he teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the program in Comparative Literature.