Roberto Cobo in Drag

“That sounds like
another bolero, Molina”
—Manuel Puig
Kiss of the Spider Woman

“Cobra Woman the
legendary tragic and
salvific Maria Montez”
—James McCourt,
Introduction, Cobra
By Severo Sarduy

“the hieratic, 
imperiled drag queen”
—Patrick O’Connor
Latin American Fiction and the
Narratives of the Perverse:
Paper Dolls and Spider Women

“La Manuela dances to a wordless Spanish song by Los Churumbeles de España—titled “La Leyanda del Beso” (Legend of the Kiss), based on the myth of the sleeping princess awakened by a prince’s kiss. Puig added words and inverted the myth: this time the sleeper is a young man awakened to his sexuality by a woman’s (drag queen’s) kiss. This adaptation won the prize for best screenplay at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 1978.”—Suzanne Levine, Manuel Puig and The Spider Woman: His Life and Fictions