Variations on the Body
María Ospina
Photo by Simón Parra
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Violence seeps into the marrow of Colombian writer Maria Ospina’s captivating collection of short stories Variations on the Body translated by Heather Cleary. A type of violence grounded in place and time—1980s-1990s Colombia caught in the throes of the drug trade that engenders anxiety, fear, and PTSD in the lives of the women populating the stories. The collection shrewdly captures socio-economic problems plaguing Colombia, especially in the wake of the Medellin drug cartel of the 1970s-1980s: violence thrums on the margins of the stories and has consequential impact on the mental health of the central characters. But, women manifest violent circumstances differently than men. The crux of the book, as aptly indicated by the titular story, addresses the ways in which women grapple with daily life through their bodies. In one story (“Policarpa”), a woman who had been a guerilla fighter (presumably enlisted as a FARC soldier) reintegrates into Bogota society as a cashier at Carrefour. Marcela--so-named Poli after the Revolutionary freedom fighter Policarpa Salavarrieta during her tenure in FARC--tries to make a go of it in a “legitimate” job at Carrefour but she endures frequent bouts of PTSD brought on by her former life. To make matters worse, she is penning a memoir with a heavy-handed editor who seems to be more interested in her own agenda and less so in Marcela’s actual experience. The author inventively captures the two-fold aggression Marcela endures both as a product of her PTSD and of the appropriation of her story by her editor. |
Other stories highlight the insistence that Colombian women do not necessarily control their own bodies. For example, in “Occasions,” Zenaida, sister to former-FARC guerilla fighter Marcela, works as a domestic for a middle-class family. The little girl she cares for essentially treats Zenaida like an object despite her growing pregnancy and need for solitude. Similarly, in “Saving Young Ladies,” Aurora, a recently transplanted Colombian-American who returns to downtown Bogota, becomes obsessed with Catholic girls attending a nearby convent school. Like so many of the other stories, chaos borne from violence permeates the story: “Her companions took a step forward, revealing the primal distrust of anything that happens in the street that is drilled into Bogota’s children from infancy.” (51) Complicating this story, Aurora herself is both hyper-focused on the young women but also aware of a cohort of young neighboring men trying to reintegrate into Bogota much like Marcela’s plight.
In the titular story, “Variations on the Body,” Mirla spends hours primping herself with her stylist, Martica, an aesthetician and manicurist who trims her client’s stray body hair. Mirla, a recent widow, grieves the loss of her husband Pepe, an avid collector of objects including stopwatches, matchboxes, and Hollywood movie posters. In his absence, she also begins collecting objects--scissors. Mirla associates the scissors with the physical act of cutting people out of her life as she has anemic relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. Meanwhile, Martica pampers Mirla for an upcoming vacation but wonders if the older woman will, indeed, vacation solo. The efforts Mirla takes to beautify her body is a common theme in the collection and perhaps suggests a society where women are valued mainly for their outward appearances. As translator Cleary notes, “These are bodies searching for connection and completion in a world that tends to slice up and serve: catcalls hail tits or ass; gender norms deride a muscular leg or arm; . . .”
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Maria Ospina teaches at Latin American culture at Wesleyan University. She has written widely about memory, culture, and violence in Colombia and is the previous author of El rompecabezas de la memoria. Literatura, cine y testimonio de comienzos del siglo en Colombia (2019).
Variations on the Body is a publication by Coffee House Press. Click here to purchase.
In the titular story, “Variations on the Body,” Mirla spends hours primping herself with her stylist, Martica, an aesthetician and manicurist who trims her client’s stray body hair. Mirla, a recent widow, grieves the loss of her husband Pepe, an avid collector of objects including stopwatches, matchboxes, and Hollywood movie posters. In his absence, she also begins collecting objects--scissors. Mirla associates the scissors with the physical act of cutting people out of her life as she has anemic relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. Meanwhile, Martica pampers Mirla for an upcoming vacation but wonders if the older woman will, indeed, vacation solo. The efforts Mirla takes to beautify her body is a common theme in the collection and perhaps suggests a society where women are valued mainly for their outward appearances. As translator Cleary notes, “These are bodies searching for connection and completion in a world that tends to slice up and serve: catcalls hail tits or ass; gender norms deride a muscular leg or arm; . . .”
Born in Bogota, Colombia, Maria Ospina teaches at Latin American culture at Wesleyan University. She has written widely about memory, culture, and violence in Colombia and is the previous author of El rompecabezas de la memoria. Literatura, cine y testimonio de comienzos del siglo en Colombia (2019).
Variations on the Body is a publication by Coffee House Press. Click here to purchase.
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