Stranger to the Moon [1992] – ★★★★
“What’s important to me is that I can see without being seen” [Evelio Rosero, translated from the Spanish by Victor Meadowcroft & Anne McLean].
Evelio Rosero is an author from Colombia, and this is his completely surreal, nightmare-inducing novella which starts with a being emerging from a wardrobe. He is a member of the clan of the “naked” ones who are crammed into one enormous house. They are ruled over by the “clothed” ones, the more powerful beings, who continuously use, mistreat and abuse the weaker “naked” ones. Sometimes, the “naked” ones, who are also described as having “two sexes”, venture outside their house, and it is there their biggest misfortune awaits them – their horrific encounter with the “clothed” ones, and this meeting may even lead to death. The “clothed” ones do not suspect, though, that our narrator, that “naked” one from the wardrobe (“a wandering gaze”), starts having rebellious thoughts as the idea of revengeful killing is slowly taking hold in his otherwise submissive mind. This highly imaginative, disturbing, but also fascinating, novella is an allegory of deep societal distress, inequality, control, power, and oppression.
Thoughts on Papyrus 