Amara Moira - E se eu Fosse Puta

2016, Amara Moira, Brazil, Portuguese,

Original title: "E se eu Fosse Puta" (What if I Were a Whore) by Amara Moira.

And what if I was a whore? You, reader, tell me. It has a little of everything, but above all truth, the kind we like just under the rug, well hidden, the day-to-day on the street, the bargain, the bed, the man after enjoying sex.

Amara sees herself in drag and together she discovers the life that would follow from then on, a whore wherever she went, whether to spit or to discreetly ask the price ("everything in secrecy, I'm married, you know?"). A body that has no place, a body that made itself in spite of rules and norms, a body that lent itself to the shadow, that was me and I didn't make sense, I didn't even know where I wanted to go. Who understood me? This book is about choosing that doesn't make sense, this book is about looking for whys. What if I was a whore? What if I were you?

Amara Moira is a transgender activist, feminist, doctor in theory and literary criticism from Unicamp (with a thesis on the indeterminacy of meaning in James Joyce's "Ulysses") and author of the autobiographical book "E se eu fora puta" (2016).

In addition, she is the author of the chapter "Destino Amargo" in the book "Vidas Trans - A Coragem de estar" (2017), and of the monologue in "Neca", compiled in the LGBTQIA+ anthology "A Resistência dos Vagalumes " (2019). She is the author of many articles on feminist literary criticism and on the LGBTQIA+ presence in Brazilian literature in the newspaper Suplemento Pernambuco. She is a columnist in Mídia Ninja and works as a literature teacher at the pre-college course Descomplica. 

The book was republished in 2023. "Amara is more than labels... It's a constant deconstruction. Prostitute and transvestite, in a macho society that judges and points out, she is acidic, sarcastic, punctual in showing the day-to-day struggle in the streets... A PhD student in literary criticism, she translates the untranslatable, the feelings and desires that build her, that make her cry in the corner when she has to be strong.

I laughed in many scenes, identified myself in others, and I hope that one day all that will change. For the modest and the homely, this work is out of the question. "What if I were a whore" has overflowing and exhilarating sex, raw and real, but it is not without its beauty, as only those who tell stories from the heart are able to do." - by Danilo Barbosa

Available via Amazon