Novel
Cobra
Severo Sarduy · 1972
Synopsis
Cobra, a transvestite and star of the Lyric Theatre of the Dolls run by the Señora, dreams of playing geishas, but her big feet prevent it, and the treatments to reduce them make matters worse. Pup, a grotesque dwarf born of her wounds, absorbs the pain of the transformation. Cobra and her companions set off for the Orient, then for Spain, where they look for a doctor, Doctor Ktazob; other episodes take place in India and China.
Context
The novel appeared in French as early as 1972, from Éditions du Seuil, translated by Philippe Sollers with the author, and received the Prix Médicis étranger that year. Britannica ranks his work among the most experimental, nourished by his theories of the baroque. Jaime Molina notes a neo-baroque language that mixes French, English and Spanish, and a narrator who sends the reader back to the clearer novels of the boom. Suzanne Jill Levine translated it into English in 1975.
Who it is for
Disorienting prose, with no sustained plot, full of foreign words; it is read for the sentence more than for the story.
Prizes and reception
Prix Médicis étranger in 1972, the very year of its publication in Spanish as well as in French.
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