The wandering hair
(La cabellera andante)
2015
“See, if I loved you, it was for your hair,
now you're bald, I don't love you any more.”
Frida Kahlo
More than an essay, this book is a cabinet of curiosities or, as the author prefers to call it, a reliquary. Combining the rigor of research with the most carefree experimentation, Margo Glantz explores the relationship between hair and literature, cinema, music and other cultural manifestations. She also weaves a braid of texts and images that allows her to put the Bible in dialogue with fashion magazines, Hemingway with King Kong, Casanova with Samson, Robinson Crusoe with hippies.
Critics
"Margo Glantz makes a meticulous work of possible relationships based on the image of hair. The text unfolds like a complicated hairstyle that takes an indeterminate amount of time to materialize, and for this reason, it draws on all times and diverse styles. A ritual hairstyle whose meaning is the very act of making hair the work, the work as an ornament, a substitute, a barrier, an anecdote, a facade, an enjoyment."
—Diamela Eltit
"In this book, Margo pursues the cultural obsession that makes hair a zone of strength and defenselessness, of oppressions and liberations. While possible, the comb is the shield of appearance, and the hair the statement of obedience or dissent."
—Carlos Monsiváis
Rights sold
• Spanish (World except Argentina and Uruguay): Penguin Random House
• Spanish (Argentina and Uruguay): El cuenco de plata