Book Review: The Queens Of Sarmiento Park

Ijeoma Okoye reviews Camilla Sosa Villada's exploration of unflinching love, raw honesty and resilience in 'The Queens Of Sarmiento Park.'

A review of The Queens of Sarmiento Park, through the eyes of Camilla and her group of ‘travesti’ as they navigate life as sex workers overcoming violence and adversity in Córdoba, Argentina.

By Ijeoma Okoye

Stirring, action-packed, and surreal, ‘The Queens of Sarmiento Park’ poetically narrates the lives of 21-year-old student Camila and her friends, a group of travesti making a living as sex workers in Córdoba, Argentina. I use the word ‘travesti’ intentionally to mirror the author, Camila Sosa Villada, who sees the term as a rejection of ‘prudish white politesse’:

‘Travesti…a rejection of ‘prudish white politesse.’

‘Once again Northern academia was being thrust upon us while down here we were busy surviving, living, fucking, and eating, even if all there was on our plates was dirt… I don’t use surgical vocabulary, cold as a scalpel, because the terminology doesn’t reflect our experience as travesties in these regions, from indigenous times to this nonsense of civilisation. I reclaim the stonings and spittings, I reclaim the scorn.’ 

The travesti’s triumphs and struggles as they set out ‘surviving, living, fucking, and eating’, as Villada puts it, form the central thread of The Queens of Sarmiento Park. The camaraderie among the group is the book’s soul, the buzz of their connections (and sometimes, rivalry) with each other jumping off every page. While the story is written in beautiful lyrical prose, the lively and descriptive passages make the reader feel as though they’re listening to a collection of personal anecdotes told by someone familiar. It feels fitting that when Camila and her friends gather in the park passing around a hip flask of whiskey and negotiating with johns, they gossip endlessly. 

One night in particular ignites the plot: the 178-year-old adoptive mother of Camila’s group, Auntie Encarna, hears a baby in the bushes. Upon seeing the infant, she is struck by love and the maternal desire to raise him as her son. Instantly connected and devoted to the baby, Encarna christens him ‘Twinkle in Her Eye’.

‘Revealing the clash between the travesti’s dreams and their violent reality.’

Newborns represent new beginnings, and Twinkle in Her Eye is no different. His arrival is celebrated by Encarna and her chosen family as though it were a planned birth. After the initial high, Twinkle in Her Eye’s arrival reveals the clash between the travesti’s dreams and their violent reality. Auntie Encarna fights to protect her life with Twinkle at a great personal cost, as the neighbourhood’s moral panic quickly transforms into abuse. As Villada writes, ‘Encarna knew they were coming for her. For all his blessings, Twinkle brought with him the metallic taste of fear.’

Even before Twinkle’s arrival, the travesti were murdered, arrested, and abused. The novel tackles all this unflinchingly through the eyes of Camila. One of the youngest in the group, life as a travesti is a path that allows her to exist on her terms as much as possible. It also provides an escape from her abusive father. However, as much as Auntie Encarna’s boarding house is a sanctuary offering magic, sisterhood, and physical safety, it can’t completely shield Camila from society’s brutality. 

‘The Queens of Sarmiento Park is infused with darkness, but it is equally a tale of contrasts.’

Camila’s experience as a sex worker does include rare moments of tenderness, but more frequently it is filled with sexual abuse, physical violence, and harassment, moments where she must think on her feet to get out alive. This only further underlines the hypocrisy of the stigma unjustly surrounding the travesti. It is the johns who carry out horrendous acts and it is the police who do nothing - or carry out sins of their own. Yet, the backlash and derision fall on Camila and her friends, and only intensify over the course of the story.

Considering this, I found it surprising that Camila’s narration doesn’t paint every client with the same accusatory brush. A few are described as attentive, or attractive. Despite this, only a handful of the interactions between the johns and the travesti are straightforward. More commonly, the johns take advantage of the travesti’s outcast status in Córdoba society. The group is punished by a society that rejects who they are and often also by the very johns who pursue them for pleasure. Transphobia makes this cycle almost impossible to escape; the travesti have little way of supporting themselves beyond sex work unless they present as men. A theme throughout the book is the resilience and toll it takes to navigate this daily. In a scene at the end of the novel, Camila breaks down into tears at the weight of her anger.

The Queens of Sarmiento Park is infused with darkness, but it is equally a tale of contrasts. One of the travesti transforms into a bird, a figure of freedom, but becomes caged as the story’s violence escalates. Another of Camila’s friends transforms into a wolf, a figure of power, but dies brutally.

‘Juxtapositions we come across in life: gentleness and carnality between lovers…hope is a source of both strength and insecurity.’

The book examines other juxtapositions we come across in life: gentleness and carnality between lovers, the bickering and loyalty between friends. Hope is a source of both strength and insecurity. Page after page, Villada presents us with unrelenting bleakness, but also unrelenting love. In the world which Villada unravels, loss and hope are two sides of the same coin. Even the love for life that makes us all dare to pursue our wildest dreams casts a shadow. 

If I'm honest, the book’s ending came as a surprise. I had hoped that the characters would ride into the sunset with loose ends tied up in a neat bow. Of course, Queens of Sarmiento Park doesn’t provide that. People living at the margins of society do not always triumph; that’s the nature of oppression. Nevertheless, love, community, and self-acceptance all arm the travesti to win at least some of life’s battles.

Buy the book here.