How much must a body suffer to belong?
At just seventeen years old, the protagonist of this story finds a folder with her name on it. Upon opening it, she discovers a truth: she is intersex. Gradually, everything becomes clear: the family secrets, the signs on her body, the pain, the guilt.
Twenty-one years later, through hard investigative work, Candelaria Schamun decides to delve into her own story. In this way, she creates an impressive autobiographical work where she gradually reconstructs her identity until she can celebrate and defend her intersexuality today, not without having gone through unimaginable, violent, and difficult scenarios from a very young age.
Schamun’s narrative is powerful, essential, raw, and healing. A story that celebrates diversity and, at the same time, firmly denounces how ignorance can exert pressure on bodies in the name of a supposed normality, as well as its consequences.
«Ese que fui should be read in daycares, schools, high schools, universities, towns, cities, streets, parks… Perhaps then we would begin to understand that the world and bodies are not as we were told they had to be and we would discover that they should not be any certain way». – Sabina Urraca
About the author:
Candelaria Schamun (La Plata, 1981) is a journalist and intersex writer. She has worked as a crime reporter for the newspaper Crítica, in the Society section of Clarín, and as a news producer at the C5N channel, always connected to narrative and investigative journalism. She is also the author of Cordero de Dios, about the femicide of Candela Sol Rodríguez.
With Ese que fui. Expediente de una rebelión corporal, she became one of the leading voices on intersexuality in the Spanish-speaking world. The book was highlighted among the best nonfiction titles of the year by media outlets such as Infobae and received recognition from organizations like Amnesty International Argentina, which named her one of the LGBTIQ+ leaders in its program “Voces que transforman.”
