FLESH, ADOLESCENCE

THE ECUADORIAN WRITER EXPLORES THE DARKEST ASPECTS OF WOMEN'S RELATIONSHIPS IN "MANDÍBULA". LA ESCRITORA ECUATORIANA EXPLORA EN "MANDÍBULA" LOS ASPECTOS MÁS SOMBRÍOS DE LAS RELACIONES ENTRE MUJERES. FLESH, ADOLESCENCE AND WHITE HORROR MONICA OJEDA'S "JAW"

For Ecuadorian Mónica Ojeda, writing is like opening your eyes underwater and holding your breath. Her work, reminiscent with that of authors like Mariana Enríquez, Fernanda Melchor or Ariana Harwicz, pulls us by the leg. It takes us with it underwater so we can see the horror that lies in beauty and vice versa.

In her latest novel, "Mandíbula" (ed. Candaya), which will be available in U.S. bookstores in 2021, she explores the dark areas of relationships between womenmothers and daughters, teachers and students, and teenagers in the oppressive atmosphere of an Opus Dei school for girls in Guayaquil. There, a series of terror-loving quinceañeras invent a primordial deity to which they pay a strange, sadomasochistic cult while provoking terror in a bitter Spanish teacher who is haunted by the ghost of her own mother.

"Mandíbula" ('Jawbone') is a pure women's novel, but it is also an act of cannibalism...

I was very interested in exploring the emotions in women's bodies by taking it to the extreme limits of experience. We have always been given the ethics and emotional responsibility of the family and that has become a possible scenario of terror. Our psychology, because of this responsibility, has been broken many times and filled with opacities and dark areas.

As you say, this relationship between teachers and students, mothers and daughters, and even between students themselves is very passionate and therefore very close to violence. ENGLISH

Escribir para la ecuatoriana Mónica Ojeda es como abrir los ojos bajo el agua y aguantar la respiración. Su literatura, hermanada con la de autoras como Mariana Enríquez o Ariana Harwicz, nos jala de la pierna para que veamos el horror que reside en toda belleza y la belleza que hay en el horror. En su última novela, “Mandíbula” (ed. Candaya), que llegará a las librerías estadounidenses en 2021, explora las zonas oscuras que existen en las relaciones entre mujeres -madres e hijas, maestras y alumnas, adolescentes- en el opresivo ambiente de una escuela del Opus Dei femenina en Guayaquil (Ecuador). Donde un grupo de quinceañeras amantes del terror inventan una deidad primigenia a la que le rinden un culto extraño y sadomasoquista.

Mandíbula es una novela de puras mujeres, pero también es un acto de canibalismo...

Quería explorar las emociones en los cuerpos de las mujeres llevándolo al límite extremo de la experiencia. Siempre se nos ha otorgado la responsabilidad emocional de la familia y eso ha llenado a menudo nuestra psique de zonas oscuras. Por otro lado, la relación que existe entre las alumnas es muy pasional, y eso la hace cercana a la violencia.

¿Crees que la violencia ejercida por las mujeres es diferente a la de los hombres?

Creo que es una condición humana y que a las mujeres nos han negado ejercer cierto tipo ESPAÑOL

de violencia, pero hemos encontrado tácticas más sutiles… Podemos ser victimarias y víctimas al mismo tiempo.

También abordas el miedo como una emoción primigenia ligada a la adolescencia. Un horror de la carne...

Me fascinan las religiones como respuesta al miedo y me resultaba interesante que si tenía a unas adolescentes fanáticas del terror y los creepypastas educadas en un colegio Opus Dei, quisiesen notar dónde está el miedo y crear su propia religión diseñando a su Dios Blanco y utilizando el mismo discurso religioso en el que han crecido.

Luego está el pavor de los adultos a la adolescencia de sus hijas, porque en la pubertad surgen

Ecuadorian author Monica Ojeda. Photo by Cinema and Literature.

La autora ecuatoriana Mónica Ojeda. Foto de Cine y Literatura.

Podemos ser victimarias y víctimas al mismo tiempo. Since women have been denied the right to exercise more physical violence, we have found our own tactics.

Is the violence exercised by women different from that of men?

I believe that violence is a human condition and, since women have been denied the right to exercise more physical violence, we have found our own tactics.

The violence in women's socially repressed bodies has not been so much in hitting as in more subtle areas that have to do with isolation and control; with putting psychological pressure on the other person.

The “creepypasta,” those horror stories that emerge from the Internet, have their protagonist in the book. In fact, as with Slenderman, their effect is to get inside our heads.

And some of them are terrifying, yes. When I first started reading creepypastas, I had nightmares and suffered from sleeplessness. Then I realized that words are capable of contaminating someone's head, like Annelisa's character, who inoculates her friends with contaminating words and is very manipulative and intelligent.

I am afraid of people who are able to use words in such a way that they make you doubt what you know, or even make you think that you think dif

ENGLISH

ferently. Being under the spell of someone else's word.

And they also behave in a very subversive way through sexuality. Can sex be a weapon of rebellion?

Well, actually, it's also been a form of liberation of women's bodies.

I'm very interested in a phenomenon that occurred in the second half of the 20th century in the southern cone. The military dictatorships that existed were right-wing and had a discourse on women and mothers similar to that of Opus Dei. In that context, women writers emerged who began to write directly pornographic novels with female characters and even had to go into exile and the works were censored. Authors such as Armonía Somers, who sought in pornography a way to vindicate themselves politically.

ESPAÑOL

los deseos sexuales y el sexo viene a mancharlo todo, lo que está reluciente y blanco. Hay una curiosa relación entre el horror y el color blanco en la literatura de terror clásica, desde Poe a Lovecraft… El miedo a mancharse, a que el árbol se tuerza.

¿Qué papel cumplen los creepypastas en “Mandíbula”?

Leyéndolos me di cuenta de que las palabras son capaces de contaminar la cabeza de alguien, como hace uno de los personajes inoculando palabras contaminantes en sus amigas.

Me asustan las personas capaces de utilizar las palabras de tal modo que te hacen dudar de lo que sabes. Estar bajo el conjuro de la palabra de otra persona.

¿Hubiese sido una novela diferente si los personajes fueran de otra clase social?

No habría las mismas opresiones en un colegio público, ya que esas chicas tendrían madres trabajadoras y las educarían para tratar de alcanzar otro estatus social. Mientras que las mujeres de la novela son educadas para ser como sus madres: esposas y buenas conversadoras.

Escribir para la ecuatoriana Mónica Ojeda es como abrir los ojos bajo el agua y aguantar la respiración. For Ecuadorian Mónica Ojeda, writing is like opening your eyes underwater and holding your breath.

Get to Know Women of Color Who Are Pioneers for Progress

FREE EXHIBITION OPEN NOW

Women 100 is a yearlong celebration of American women who have been pioneers for women’s progress in a variety of fi elds. Visit Seat at the Table, a new exhibition, to learn about 18 pioneers and the status of gender equality in the U.S. today — 100 years after women won the right to vote.

Bring your sisters, daughters and friends to share this experience in the lobby of the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 300 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, open now through September 30.

See all coming events at Women100.org Women featured in the exhibition include:

Emma González

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski