ADVERTISEMENT
Daily Expert News
No Result
View All Result
Thursday, February 9, 2023
  • Home
  • World
  • Economy
  • Business
  • Markets
  • Arts & Culture
  • Education & Career
  • India
  • Politics
  • Top Stories
Daily Expert News
  • Home
  • World
  • Economy
  • Business
  • Markets
  • Arts & Culture
  • Education & Career
  • India
  • Politics
  • Top Stories
No Result
View All Result
Daily Expert News
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • World
  • Economy
  • Business
  • Markets
  • Arts & Culture
  • Education & Career
  • India
  • Politics
  • Top Stories
Home Arts & Culture books

The healer, the journalist and the murder that brought them together

by Nick Erickson
August 16, 2022
in books
129 4
0
The healer, the journalist and the murder that brought them together
152
SHARES
1.9k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
ADVERTISEMENT


WITCH, by means of Brenda Lozano | Translated by Heather Cleary


In the 1960s, ceremonies led by María Sabina Magdalena García, a Mazatec healer in Oaxaca who worked with psilocybin mushrooms, became so famous that they began to attract foreigners. Bob Dylan and Keith Richards would be her visitors. The arrival of so many invaders to the healer’s village caught the attention of Mexican police, who suspected her of dealing drugs. She was ostracized by her community and her house burned down.

Many North Americans heard of her from the ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson, who published a first-person account of her ceremonies in 1957 entitled “Seeking the Magic Mushroom,” in Life magazine. Wasson’s trip was funded by MK-Ultra, the CIA’s program to research mind-altering drugs for possible use in interrogations. He gave the healer a pseudonym, but printed her photo without permission, and her real name appeared in a book he published that same year.

Brenda Lozano doesn’t mention Magdalena García in her novel “Witches,” but according to a note by a translator from Heather Cleary in the English-language edition, Lozano was inspired by the woman’s life. The note does not address the issues of consent and ethical research raised by the magazine story, nor does the novel. Cleary’s point is that Mexican readers will probably understand the reference. (A very different novel, “Carne de Dios”, by Homero Aridjis, has a more biographical approach.)

The book is beautifully translated. Cleary leaves with word and deed in Spanish terms like curandera, the feminine form of healer, and the less prestigious bruja, or witch. “A bruja can literally act in spells, but the term can also be used figuratively to dismiss a woman as a nag,” she writes. “On the other hand, a woman with a highly developed sense of intuition can be called admirably a bruja.”

Lozano’s novel is full of brujas. A young journalist named Zoe, whose mother has a highly developed sense of intuition, travels from Mexico City to rural Oaxaca. Zoe has been commissioned to write an article about the curandera Feliciana (a fictional Magdalena García), whose teacher has just been murdered. The teacher was a mux, another untranslated word referring to a third gender recognized and even celebrated by some indigenous communities in Oaxaca. But the murder was a hate crime committed by a man the teacher had spent the night with.

Feliciana has attracted rich and generous followers from all over the world. She’s not really interested in fame, although fame doesn’t threaten her way of being like it did for the real Magdalena García. Feliciana is only interested in healing people with the mushrooms she calls “children.” As she tells her story, she also pulls Zoe’s out of her. Both have sisters who were violated—in Zoe’s case, their mother’s intuition protected her from worse harm—and fathers who died with unfinished business.

This is Lozano’s third book; she has also published a collection of short stories and the more experimental novel ‘Loop’, her first title to be translated into English. The greatest success of “Witches” is the way she weaves together two different voices – one Spanish-speaking, from the capital, rightly angered by gender violence, and the other disregarding the “language of government” in favor of her own. , explaining matter-of-fact life in rural Mexico. “Kids in our town do whatever they want until they can walk,” Feliciana says, “but once they can stand on their own like little cows, it’s time for them to work.”

Although the book describes violence against women and those who present themselves as women, it emphasizes, in both rural and urban communities, an atmosphere of freedom and mobility that is a joy to read. Both very different women – the curandera and the journalist – have many people in their lives, especially sisters, who heal and support them, even in a hostile world.


Rachel Nolan is an assistant professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.


WITCHES, by Brenda Lozano | Translated by Heather Cleary | 240 pages | Slingshot | $26

ADVERTISEMENT
Tags: broughtDailyExpertNewshealerjournalistmurder

Get real time update about this post categories directly on your device, subscribe now.

Unsubscribe
ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

books

United Talent Agency is expanding its literary activities

January 4, 2023
books

Read your way around Tokyo

January 4, 2023
The end of a bookworld mystery: a suspect in manuscript thefts to plead guilty
books

The end of a bookworld mystery: a suspect in manuscript thefts to plead guilty

January 4, 2023
Britain is preparing for another installment in the Royal Family Drama
books

Britain is preparing for another installment in the Royal Family Drama

January 3, 2023
In the novel "Cosy Catastrophe", the end of the world is not so bad
books

In the novel “Cosy Catastrophe”, the end of the world is not so bad

January 2, 2023
Edith Pearlman, acclaimed writer in later life, dies at 86
books

Edith Pearlman, acclaimed writer in later life, dies at 86

January 1, 2023
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
This optical illusion has a revelation about your brain and eyes

This optical illusion has a revelation about your brain and eyes

June 6, 2022
NDTV Coronavirus

Viral video: Chinese woman pinned down, Covid test carried out by force

May 5, 2022
NDTV News

TGIF Mood: Video of Bear Cub Dancing in the Forest Melts 2.5 Million Hearts

June 3, 2022
Hundreds In Sarees At UK

Hundreds of sarees at Britain’s Royal Ascot Horse Race to help Indian weavers

June 16, 2022
The shock of chopping up a Chanel bag

The shock of chopping up a Chanel bag

1
NDTV News

Watch: Researchers Discover the World’s Largest Factory in Australia

1
Skyrocketing global fuel prices threaten livelihoods and social stability

Skyrocketing global fuel prices threaten livelihoods and social stability

1
No Guns, No Dragons: Her Video Games Capture Private Moments

No Guns, No Dragons: Her Video Games Capture Private Moments

1
A look at Kiara Advani's simple yet beautiful Mangalsutra, which goes well with her western attire; Photos inside

A look at Kiara Advani’s simple yet beautiful Mangalsutra, which goes well with her western attire; Photos inside

February 9, 2023
Europe is Ukraine's 'home', Zelensky says in an emotional speech to EU lawmakers

Europe is Ukraine’s ‘home’, Zelensky says in an emotional speech to EU lawmakers

February 9, 2023
Delhi Boy, 9, Named In

Delhi Boy, 9, named in “World’s Brightest” List, received major accolades

February 9, 2023
CA Inter, final exam November 2023 held under existing arrangement: ICAI

CA Inter, final exam November 2023 held under existing arrangement: ICAI

February 9, 2023
ADVERTISEMENT

Recent News

A look at Kiara Advani's simple yet beautiful Mangalsutra, which goes well with her western attire; Photos inside

A look at Kiara Advani’s simple yet beautiful Mangalsutra, which goes well with her western attire; Photos inside

February 9, 2023
Europe is Ukraine's 'home', Zelensky says in an emotional speech to EU lawmakers

Europe is Ukraine’s ‘home’, Zelensky says in an emotional speech to EU lawmakers

February 9, 2023

Categories

  • Africa
  • Americas
  • art-design
  • Arts
  • Arts & Culture
  • Asia Pacific
  • Astrology News
  • books
  • Books News
  • Business
  • Cricket
  • Cryptocurrency
  • Dance
  • Dining and Wine
  • Economy
  • Education & Career
  • Entertainment
  • Europe
  • Fashion
  • Food
  • Football
  • Gadget
  • Gaming
  • Golf
  • Health
  • Hot News
  • India
  • Indians Abroad
  • Lifestyle
  • Markets
  • Middle East
  • Most Shared
  • Motorsport
  • Movie
  • Music
  • New York
  • Opinion
  • Politics
  • press release
  • Real Estate
  • Review
  • Science & Space
  • Sports
  • Sunday Book Review
  • Tax News
  • Technology
  • Television
  • Tennis
  • Theater
  • Top Movie Reviews
  • Top Stories
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Web Series
  • World

Site Navigation

  • Home
  • Advertisement
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Other Links

We bring you the Breaking News,Latest Stories,World News, Business News, Political News, Technology News, Science News, Entertainment News, Sports News, Opinion News and much more from all over the world

©Copyright DailyExpertNews 2022

No Result
View All Result
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Top Stories
  • World
  • Economy
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Markets
  • India
  • Education & Career
  • Arts
  • Advertisement
  • Tax News
  • Markets

©Copyright DailyExpertNews 2022

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?