Three Generations of Witches and Female Power in “Weyward” – Chicago Review of Books

Three Generations of Witches and Female Power in “Weyward” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Perhaps there are no more famous witches than Shakespeare’s three “weyward” wenches. The crookedness of the Bard’s (and Britain’s) witches represented a cultural fear of an empty womb—the childless, the menopausal. Women were to be coupled and birthing. If they were not, they were witchy. Evil. Monstrously magical. But, for the reader, the witches … Read more

Language, Gender, and Power in “Witches” – Chicago Review of Books

Language, Gender, and Power in “Witches” – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Brenda Lozano’s Witches, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary, tells the story of the lives of two Mexican women: Feliciana, an aging curandera, or folk healer, living in a small rural village in Oaxaca who has gained an international reputation, and Zoe, a young journalist from Mexico City. Zoe is dispatched to interview … Read more

Revisiting “The Witches of Eastwick” 330 Years After Salem – Chicago Review of Books

Revisiting “The Witches of Eastwick” 330 Years After Salem – Chicago Review of Books

[ad_1] Around the time that Donald Trump was elected president in late 2016, a phrase began circulating periodically on my social media feeds: “We are the granddaughters of the witches you couldn’t burn.” This pithy rejoinder to patriarchal overreach was taken from a 2015 Tish Thawer novel but has since taken on a life of … Read more