A review by lepasseportlitteraire
Las malas by Camila Sosa Villada

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

In this wonderfully written novel, we follow the life of a community of trans women working and sharing life, in Sarmiento Park, Cordoba. Camila Sosa Villada portrays at the same time the violence and brutality these women are put through in society in its all (clients, friends, the police, their own families) and the celebration of being part of the « travesti » community. All of the love they are denied by everyone around them, they try and find it in each other, but it is not always enough.

✨ The novel is heartbreaking, as the violence described in it is difficult to accept, especially the way the violence perpetuated by families: while one cannot be surprised by the police brutality portrayed in the story, the fury and barbarity coming from the people who should love you the most and unconditionally is the most emotionally difficult to read. 

✨ Camila Sosa Villada, however, takes all of the ugliness and turns it into a literature masterpiece no less: the writing is divine, with a mixture of realism and magical realism that make the novel so much more than just a story of violence and abuse. Of course, violence has a major role in the novel, but so do beauty and celebration. It is important to note, as I read it in various reviews, that Camila Sosa Villada does not consider this novel as being autobiographical and she claims her right, and the right of all travesti to write fiction: the right to write other stories than their own in opposition to a society that so often expects from minorities that they only write about their own experience.