Cobra

The late Severo Sarduy was one of the most outrageous and baroque of the Latin American Boom writers of the sixties and seventies, and Cobra was his finest creation. Cobra (1972) recounts the tale of a transvestite named Cobra, star of the Lyrical Theater of the Dolls, whose obsession is to transform his/her body. She is assisted in her metamorphosis by the Madam and Pup, Cobra's dwarfish double. They too change shape, through the violent ceremonies of a motorcycle gang, into a sect of Tibetan lamas seeking to revive Tantric Buddhism. In its first edition from Dalkey Archive Press, Cobra was bound with Sarduy's novel Maitreya (1978) which continues the theme of metamorphosis. Transgressing genres and genders, reveling in literal and figurative transvestism, Sarduy's work is among the most daring achievements of postmodern Latin American fiction.