Claudia Rodríguez’s Cuerpos para odiar (Bodies to Hate) is an unflinching, visceral, and poignant literary statement. More than just a book, it is a political act, a chronicle of exclusion, pain, sisterhood, and survival within the brutal margins of Latin American society. Rodríguez, a Chilean trans activist, poet, and writer, has carved a space for the voices historically erased, ignored, or caricatured.
Her prose is tender yet lacerating, humorous and haunting, deeply lyrical and defiantly political.
The book opens with a chilling confession: “Because it’s believed that what is different is grotesque and monstrous, I have been so hated that I have reasons to write. I was never a hope for anyone. I put letters together and write, poorly, about this emptiness.” These words immediately set the tone for the rest of the work, this is not a book written to please. It is not here to console. It is here to expose. To scream. To remember. To disturb. And perhaps, most of all, to demand that we see the lives so often consigned to the shadows.
Rodríguez writes because she was not alone in her suffering. She writes for her sisters, those who died young, of AIDS, of violence, of neglect, without ever knowing love. “I write for all the travestis who never even realized they were alive, who died of shame and guilt before they could be happy.”
It is this commitment, to memory, to pain, and to joy stolen too soon, that infuses every paragraph with urgency and trembling power.
The book’s format is fragmentary, echoing the disjointedness of a life lived in constant battle: poetic vignettes, raw testimonies, intimate confessions, street corner philosophies. These are not polished essays, and the language intentionally resists orthographic conventions. Spelling rules are broken, grammar bent, and syntax rearranged, Rodríguez reclaims the language that excluded her, transforming it into a rebellious act of self-expression. Her style is what Argentine horror writer Mariana Enríquez calls “honesty taken to the point of despair,” a narrative voice so immediate and unfiltered that it feels like reading thoughts that have barely had time to settle on the page.
Elsewhere, she writes:
They say I don’t know how to speak and speak for me, but always against me, because according to them, it’s my fault I’m stupid the way I am. But they lie. It’s their twisted way of seeing the world that sinks me, that humiliates me, that sickens and weakens me. They lie when they talk about the people, about hunger and cold, denying the travestis. They always speak in their favor, for their benefit. They never lose. They always bounce back. They lie when they can’t even imagine that a poor, resentful travesti like me might survive, and resist.
Claudia Rodríguez is not only a literary voice; she is a historical force within Latin American trans activism.
Art is not escapism; it is confrontation. In her words, her country and its embedded fascism made her “a cold, hungry, and creative travesti”, a creature like Marilyn Monroe, unwanted and dangerously radiant.
The visual presentation of Cuerpos para odiar also adds to its impact. Designed by Nazario Luque, often called the father of the Spanish underground, the cover and flaps feature evocative, erotic, and decadent illustrations, one of a voluptuous behind exploding into a flamenco fan, another of a slumped figure in a satin robe surrounded by bottles and cigarettes. These images, drenched in melancholy and desire, mirror the text's atmosphere: beautiful, defiant, broken, surviving.
The role of Mariana Enríquez, the acclaimed Argentine writer known for Things We Lost in the Fire and Our Share of Night, is crucial here. As editor and champion of the book, Enríquez introduces Rodríguez’s work to a broader audience and provides a powerful prologue. Herself an expert in the world of fanzines and fringe literature, Enríquez understands the urgency and necessity of bringing voices like Claudia Rodríguez’s to the mainstream, without compromising their wildness.
Bodies to Hate is not a comfortable read, nor is it supposed to be. It is not meant to be consumed passively, but rather absorbed through the skin, the heart, and the bones. Claudia Rodríguez offers no resolutions. Instead, she offers memory, rage, tenderness, and resistance in their most raw and poetic forms. It is a necessary book, one that will stay with readers long after the last page, echoing with the names and shadows of those who lived, loved, and died without ever being seen.
In Cuerpos para odiar, Claudia Rodríguez makes sure they are seen. And heard. And remembered.
Available via Amazon
Photos via Instagram.
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