This book is the first of its kind—a comprehensive account of transvestism and the performance of gender in Latin American literature and culture. Ben. Sifuentes-Jaureguí explores the figure of the transvestite and his/her relation to the body through a series of canonical Latin American texts. By analyzing works by Alejo Carpentier, José Donoso, Severo Sarduy, and Manuel Puig, alongside critical works in gender studies and queer theory, Sifuentes-Jaureguí shows how transvestism operates not only to destabilize, but often to affirm sexual, gender, national, and political identities.