Witches (Paperback) - Brenda Lozano

The story of three women - an indigenous healer, a trans woman, and a journalist - from different worlds who uncover striking parallels between their lives

A bewitching novel by Brenda Lozano, one of the most prominent voices of the new generation of Latin American writers.


'You can't really know another woman until you know yourself.'

Weaving together two parallel narratives, this is the story of Feliciana, an indigenous curandera (healer), and of Zoe, a journalist: two women drawn together by the murder of Feliciana's cousin Paloma.

In the tiny village of San Felipe in Jalisco province, where traditional ways of life and belief are a present reality, Feliciana tells the story of her life, her community's acceptance of her as a genuine curandera and the difficulties faced by her cousin Paloma who is a Muxe (both male and female), in her case a trans woman.

Growing up in Mexico City, the heart of modern Mexico, Zoe attempts to find her way in a hostile world made for men, as she reflects on what drew her to Feliciana and Paloma, and her own relationship with the innate powers of a curandera.

This extraordinary novel envisions the writer as healer, one who uses El Lenguaje (Language) to read El Libro (The Book) that contains the mystery of the world, and offers a generous and distinctly female way of understanding the complex world we all inhabit.

Translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary

About the Author

Brenda Lozano is a fiction writer, essayist and editor. Born in Mexico City, she studied literature in Mexico and the United States. She has participated in literary residencies in the US, Europe and Latin America, and her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Mexico20 and Bogota39. She edits the literary journal Make in Chicago and is part of Ugly Duckling Presse in New York. She is the author of two earlier novels, Todo nada (2009), which is currently being adapted for the screen, and Cuaderno Ideal (2015), recently published by Charco Press in an English translation by Annie McDermott as Loop, and a book of short stories, Como piensan las piedras (2017). In 2015, she was recognised by Conaculta, the Hay Festival and the British Council as one of the most important authors under forty years of age from Mexico, and in 2017 she was selected by the Hay Festival for Bogota 39, a list of the most outstanding new authors from Latin America. She currently lives in Mexico City.