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Julio Cortázar and Cristina Peri Rossi are two Latin American mid-twentieth century writers who were close friends and enjoyed an ongoing personal correspondence, including published poetry and essays dedicated to one another. This essay explores a fictional correspondence between them by comparing the striptease scenes in two of their novels, Cortázar's Libro de Manuel and Peri Rossi's La nave de los locos. Both novels feature expatriate and exiled characters in European cities who perform in or become spectators of striptease shows held at clubs in gritty urban surroundings. Although some ten years separate the publication of the two novels, the significance of these scenes in their respective works suggests some heretofore unexplored themes in their shared preoccupation with urban space, exile and displacement, political resistance, gender transgression, sexuality and the body. Rereading these scenes alongside feminist, gender, and performance studies theory from the decades in which the novels appeared, as well as in light of more recent theories on cross-dressing, trans performance and globalization, uncovers new dimensions in the politics of space, the body, exile and belonging in these two writers' work.
