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Feliciana loses her father as a child and the family move back to live under the strict authority of her maternal grandfather, Cosmo. The language is lyrical but at the same time unsentimental in its telling of this rural childhood. Feliciana’s story is told in long, looping sentences, reminding me of the oral storytelling style of Juan Tomas Avila Laurel’s By Night the Mountain Burns, but also reflecting the repetitive, incantatory language of the healing ceremonies.

What then follows is not an interview, but alternating chapters in the voices of Feliciana and Zoë, telling the story of their lives, and in Feliciana’s case, the story of Paloma and events leading up to her death. Her interest is piqued, she takes on the story and makes arrangements to go down to San Felipe to interview Feliciana.

A colleague tells her that Paloma was related to the world famous healer Feliciana, and, though Zoë has no interest in the supernatural, she remembers a couple of times her mother’s intuition played a crucial role in their family life. When Zoë hears about the murder she’s outraged, as she is every time she hears about femicides, abuse and violence towards women-or indeed has to put up with the sexist jokes circulating in the newspaper office. We also learn that Paloma was a muxe-the name for an indigenous transgender woman in this part of Mexico.

We learn that she was a cousin of Feliciana, that she’d inherited the gift of healing from their grandfather and, recognising the gift in Feliciana, had initiated her into the rituals of the healing ceremonies. The novel starts with the startling image of Paloma’s murdered body. But they also give voice to the experiences we have in common. Coming from very different places-rural and urban, traditional and modern-they show us a huge range of women’s experience and gender identity. It explores the lives and relationships of women in the south- western state of Oaxaca, through the alternating voices of Feliciana, a famous curandera, or healer, and Zoë, a journalist. Brujas– Witches- is the latest novel by Mexican writer Brenda Lozano.