‘Orlando, My Political Biography’ Review: Virginia Woolf’s Famed Novel Anchors Poetic Trans Manifesto
Manuel Betancourt Virginia Woolf‘s “Orlando: A Biography” is a centuries-spanning tale of a nobleman who, after a slumber that runs through several nights, metamorphoses into a woman.
Inspired by and dedicated to Woolf’s lover, Vita Sackville-West, the classic 1928 novel has long been fodder for feminist and queer readings.
The florid tale of a nobleman-cum-woman who fluidly plays with gender and sexuality, is as totemic a text as one can find to illustrate the timely and timeless journeys trans and gender-noncomforning folks have been making for decades (if not centuries).
That is precisely what trans filmmaker Paul B. Preciado has done with his brilliant docu-manifesto, “Orlando, My Political Biography.” Preciado understands how powerful a tale (a trans myth, really) “Orlando: A Biography” remains close to a century since it was first published.
