Gabriela Wiener is a Peruvian author whose work spans chronicle, poetry, and journalism. Her writing delves into the complexities of human relationships and the search for identity in the contemporary world. Wiener is known for her sharp observations and her ability to capture the subtle nuances of the human experience.
Exploring the complexities of colonialism, a Peruvian journalist delves into her family's intertwined history with both colonizers and the colonized. Alone in a Paris museum, she confronts the legacy of her great-great-grandfather, an Austrian explorer who looted pre-Columbian artifacts from her homeland. As she navigates her father's infidelity and her own polyamorous relationships, she unpacks themes of abandonment, jealousy, and racism, ultimately seeking to reconcile her personal struggles with the broader historical wounds of her ancestry.
The book offers a bold and humorous examination of sex, pregnancy, and motherhood, tackling the complexities and societal obsessions surrounding human reproduction. Through the lens of a daring Peruvian essayist, it combines wit and insight to challenge conventional views and spark conversation about these often-taboo subjects.
“No other writer in the Spanish-speaking world is as fiercely independent and thoroughly irreverent as Gabriela Wiener. Constantly testing the limits of genre and gender, Wiener’s work … has bravely unveiled truths some may prefer remain concealed about a range of topics, from the daily life of polymorphous desire to the tiring labor of maternity.” —Cristina Rivera Garza, author of The Iliac Crest In fierce and sumptuous first-person accounts, renowned Peruvian journalist Gabriela Wiener records infiltrating the most dangerous Peruvian prison, participating in sexual exchanges in swingers clubs, traveling the dark paths of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the company of transvestites and prostitutes, undergoing a complicated process of egg donation, and participating in a ritual of ayahuasca ingestion in the Amazon jungle—all while taking us on inward journeys that explore immigration, maternity, fear of death, ugliness, and threesomes. Fortunately, our eagle-eyed voyeur emerges from her narrative forays unscathed and ready to take on the kinks, obsessions, and messiness of our lives. Sexographies is an eye-opening, kamikaze journey across the contours of the human body and mind.
