I'm a Fool to Want You: Stories

by Camila Villada, Kit Maude (Translator)

Overview

These dazzling stories from the internationally acclaimed author of Bad Girls erase the fine line between fantasy and reality, and establish her as an impressive literary voice.

In the 1990s, a woman makes a living as a rental girlfriend for gay men. In a Harlem den, a travesti gets to know none other than Billie Holiday. A group of rugby players haggle over the price of a night of sex, and in return they get what they deserve. Nuns, grandmothers, children, and dogs are never what they seem...

These 9 stories are inhabited by extravagant and profoundly human characters who face an ominous reality in ways as strange as themselves. I’m a Fool to Want You confirms that Camila Sosa Villada is one of the most powerful and original voices in contemporary literature. With her daring imagination, she can speak the language of a victim of the Mexican Inquisition, or create a dystopian universe where travestis take their revenge. With her unique style, Sosa Villada blends everyday life and magic, honoring the oral tradition with unparalleled fluency.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781635423853
Publisher:	Other Press, LLC
Publication date:	05/28/2024
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	376,076
Product dimensions:	5.22(w) x 7.97(h) x 0.69(d)

About the Author

Camila Sosa Villada was born in 1982 in La Falda (Córdoba, Argentina). She is a writer, actress, and singer, and previously earned a living as a sex worker, street vendor, and hourly maid. She holds degrees in communication and theater from the National University of Córdoba. Her play Carnes tolendas, retrato escénico de un travesti was selected for the 2010 National Theater Festival held in La Plata. Her first novel, Bad Girls, won the Premio Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Grand Prix de l’Héroïne Madame Figaro and has been translated into more than twenty languages.

Kit Maude is a translator based in Buenos Aires. He has translated dozens of classic and contemporary Latin American writers such as Armonía Somers, Jorge Luis Borges, Lolita Copacabana, and Ariel Magnus for a wide array of publications, and writes reviews and criticism for several different outlets in Spanish and English including the Times Literary Supplement, Revista Ñ, and Otra Parte.

Read an Excerpt

Afternoon Tea
 
“Grandma . . . why are we brown?”
The grandmother puts down the rifle she’s been cleaning. Another rifle and a box of ammunition are sitting on the kitchen table in front of her.
“What?”
“Why are we brown?”
“We’re not brown, we’re morochas. Where did you hear that?”
“We were in gym class and Tati shouted, ‘Ewww!!! She has brown nipples!’”
The kettle comes to a boil and the grandmother stands up to turn off the burner. She wraps a dish-cloth around the iron handle before picking up the kettle. Then she puts two bags of coffee in one mug and a tea bag in the other and pours in the hot water before bringing both mugs to the table. The sugar and spoons are already laid out on the cloth. She unwraps the bread, which has been bundled up in cloth to keep warm. It came out of the clay oven less than an hour ago.
“How did she see your nipples?” she asks, sitting down.
“We were finishing gym class and had to get changed back into dry clothes. So I was sweaty and took off my T-shirt and she saw my boobies. Why are we brown?”
“We’re not brown.” The grandmother sips from her mug, which she holds in two hands. Her gold wedding ring is shoved right up to the top of her finger, where it meets the palm. “‘Brown’ is the wrong word, it’s a filthy color. We’re morochas, which is different.” She sips from her mug but the coffee is burning hot and scalds her throat. The grandmother grimaces in pain and tears come into her eyes. Her granddaughter laughs. “We’re not brown, we’re morochas, okay?”
“But that’s not an answer.” The girl puts two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into her tea, adds milk, cuts two slices of bread, and dips them in too. The bread swells with milky tea and she starts to scoop it up with the spoon like soup.
“We’re morochas because the paint ran out while we were being made.”
“What paint?”
“At the place where people are made they didn’t have enough paint to make us really dark. We were going to be black, but they ran out of paint in the color department. There are a lot of people like us in the world. We didn’t get so many coats. But they didn’t paint white people at all, or only gave them very thin coats, which is why they get hurt so easily. Sometimes you just have to poke them for them to turn red as a tomato.”
“You’re making things up.”
“No, I’m not. It’s not me who says so, the old women do.”
“You’re old.”
“Yes, but there are plenty older, believe me.”
“So why did Tati say ‘Ewww’ when she saw my brown nipples?”
“Because she’s an idiot. Only idiots say things like that. It’s better to be morocha. She can be as gringa as she likes but at the place where people are made they didn’t bother to paint her. They must have had a good reason.” She sips her coffee again, more carefully this time, before continuing. “And there are a lot of advantages to being morocha. Colors look better on you: red, orange, yellow. Put a yellow dress on that girl who said ewww about your nipples and see how it looks on her. Personally, I’d much rather look good in yellow. And as if that weren’t enough, you can go out when it’s sunny without turning red like an iguana or burning your skin as easily as this Tati girl. And there’s something else: morochas age better too. Look at your grandmother’s skin.”
The grandmother presents her face to her granddaughter framed in her hands as though it were a jewel, something to be treasured. First one cheek, then the other, then the cheekbones. “Look, look at your grandmother’s skin.” She lifts her chin with her eyes closed, showing off her neck. Then she undoes her yellow dress to show the girl her collarbones, look at your grandmother’s skin, good and dark, the bones in my chest, look, look. The old woman holds up her forearm in profile; it gleams in the sun like a sword.
“Look. Not bad for seventy-three. Just fresh cream and the sun. If it weren’t for the sand and dust you get in August and the lime from the quarry, I wouldn’t even need the cream. But the dust dries everything out.”
The girl still looks terrified: a moment ago she thought that her grandmother was going to undo her shirt all the way to reveal her nipples. Why was she showing off her wrinkles? She decides not to ask, just in case, and continues to sip her spoonfuls of tea-soaked bread. When the bread is gone, she cuts more and dunks it until it falls to pieces. Having finished cleaning the rifles, stimulated by the coffee, the grandmother grows talkative:
“Also, we’re worth more . . .”
“How are we worth more?”
“Darker things are more expensive because they’re rarer.”
The girl frowns. Why is her grandmother talking like this? The house has sucked up as much light through the windows as it can and now they have to light an oil lamp and candles to see by.
“Think about ebony furniture, it’s the darkest wood in the world. Do you know anyone who has an ebony chair?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t, because they’re so expensive. Do you know anyone who wears a black pearl necklace?”
“No,” the girl says, sighing, annoyed by her grandmother’s questions. This way she has of asking questions instead of answering hers. Wouldn’t it just be easier to say why they’re brown?
“You don’t know anyone with a black pearl necklace because they cost an arm and a leg and they’re very hard to find. And it’s not just about money. Black things are much nicer than any other color. Do you remember the black singer we saw on TV, when you said what a good singer she was and got goose bumps?”
“Yes!” the girl replies, happy at finally being able to say yes to something. There was a time when they had electricity at home and watched television. Life was very different back then.
“Look at black panthers. Black olives! Don’t you think blackbirds are prettier than canaries? It’s better to be dark.”
“What color was Mommy?”
“She was like us. Her friends at school called her tar candy. Tar candy! Tar candy! And she came home crying and said it was my fault. It took a lot of effort to make her understand that it was better to be morocha. We could fall asleep in the sun without blistering all over!” She gestures in exasperation, sensing that her words aren’t getting through.
“I’d like to be like my friends at school. Like Tati. That color.”
The grandmother finishes the last of her coffee and bangs the mug down hard on the table. Her granddaughter jumps in her chair.
“It’s getting dark, let’s go.” The girl puts down a mug whose bottom is sticky with crumbs and follows her grandmother as she picks up the two rifles. They cross the yard, where night is falling fast, leaving footprints in their wake, like the tracks of small vehicles. Bags and bags of earth are piled along the fence. A trench of potato sacks filled with earth. The dusty earth of the region. The grandmother lays down a tarp and kneels on the ground. The girl imitates her. She gives the girl a rifle and she takes it with big, scared eyes, struggling because it’s too big and heavy for a girl her age. The grandmother watches her as she sets herself like a soldier. That’s right. They lean on the bags of earth and take aim. The house is left empty and all the animals in the yard are asleep. Except for the dogs. The dogs don’t sleep while one of them is still awake.
The girl and her grandmother have the eyesight of lynxes. They’re as comfortable as ghosts in the dead of night.
“When they come, if any of those bastards gets out of the truck, aim at their head. Don’t hesitate,” says the grandmother, and her granddaughter adjusts her shoulder, finger on the trigger. She digs her feet into the dust and takes a deep breath. Just as she’s been taught.

Editorial Reviews

Imaginative, captivating, and titillating…Centering on themes of gender, sex work, love, and justice, Villada continues to shine a light on lives so often hidden in the dark.” —Ms. Magazine

“A commanding voice emerges in…this striking collection.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Remarkable…[Villada’s] talent for capturing emotions on the page gives a powerful and compassionate voice to characters often trapped in exploitation and fear to be their true selves.” —Booklist

“Original and imaginatively wide-ranging.” —Electric Literature
 
“Brilliant…compelling…These stories serve as a poignant reminder: human dignity is as fundamental as it is fragile.” —Hypercritic

“Camila Sosa Villada is an international treasure, a visionary writer of astounding originality and power. With I’m a Fool to Want You, she delivers another masterpiece: stories that thrill, delight, and shake the very world as we know it with their art and ferocity, their grit and grace, their extraordinary range. Latin American literature, queer and trans literature, and all of literature will never be the same. A triumph, a wonder, and a joy to read.” —Caro De Robertis, author of The Palace of Eros and Cantoras

“Camila Sosa Villada’s I’m a Fool to Want You is one of my favorite short-story collections of all time. I can’t stop thinking about the world and characters: they haunt, provoke, excite the spirit—wow! I love this book so much!” —Angie Cruz, author of How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

“Camila Sosa Villada is such a beautiful writer! This book blazes, charms, disquiets, and breaks your heart—you’ll regret it if you don’t read it.” —Casey Plett, author of Little Fish and A Dream of a Woman

“Intoxicating stories that leave a deep impression. Filthy, ethical, sweetly quotidian, deviant, defiant, and dreamlike. A literature of the body and spirit. With her zeal for wild pleasures and bewildering humiliations, Camila Sosa Villada had me on a leash.” —Quiara Alegría Hudes, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and author of My Broken Language

“Stunning. A collection as bright and sparkling as the precious stones one character believes she can find at the heart of a pomegranate. Camila Sosa Villada spins tales of mythic revenge, of magics great and small, and of finally finding sanctuary—in a sibling’s bed, a homemade scone, a sudden jungle. Tenderly crafted and captivating, these stories offer a sanctuary in themselves.” —Morgan Thomas, author of Manywhere: Stories

“A breathtaking, remarkable collection of stories. The boundaries between what is real and what is fantastical collapse, providing a haunting series of characters whose presence lingers long after we’ve closed the book, forcing us to consider sex, desire, humor, justice, and dignity in a completely new way.” —Cleyvis Natera, author of Neruda on the Park

“It is rare that I come across a book so alive as Camila Sosa Villada’s I’m a Fool to Want You, and the lives that populate this book are my favorite kinds: characters who’ve been cooked in interpersonal, familial, and systemic violences and come out glittering and dirty-mouthed, biting and hilarious and hungry-hearted, mean and stylish and full of love. This is a book about the worlds queer and trans people make for ourselves.” —Sam Cohen, author of Sarahland

From the Publisher

2024-04-05
A commanding voice emerges in nine stories from Argentine writer Sosa Villada.

Travestis, transgender sex workers of South America, are the stars of this striking collection. We follow them as they befriend jazz singers (including Billie Holiday), become stage actresses, find themselves trapped in nunneries, and start their own societies in the jungle. Sosa Villada, a transgender writer and actress, is an expert at the brutal, striking line: “She’d feel guilty, only she’s a travesti. She works on the road; guilt isn’t for creatures like her. Her lot is to stretch out in the sun, cover herself in Hinds cream and Impulse deodorant, and make her uncle sick with desire.” Sosa Villada’s confident voice threads through her characters as they fight to survive—from Billie Holiday refusing to return her mink coat to her ex-husband, to a travesti pawning a stolen watch to afford ingredients for scones, to a grandmother teaching her granddaughter to be proud of her skin (and how to aim a rifle). The stories interrogate what relationships demand of women, from “The Beard,” which follows a girlfriend-for-hire for wealthy gay men, to “Don’t Spend Too Long in the Dust,” which shows the fallout of an abusive marriage, including the children left behind. Many of the stories have a magical realist bent, particularly the vivid final one, “Six Breasts,” in which travestis, exiled from society and living in a magical jungle, can lay eggs and have headless lovers. Quite a few of the stories in this hard-hitting collection follow characters as they’re beaten down by bad johns, money troubles, and supernatural wild dogs, but this last story holds some hope: A travesti gives birth. The others are awed: “How were we to know that our bodies, dry, clay vessels with pointless tits, were capable of creating life?”

Stark depictions of the lives of sex workers meet magical realism.

Kirkus Reviews