The author’s jumping-off point is the myth of Artemis and Siproites, in which a young man is turned into a woman as a punishment for the attempted rape of one of Artemis’s virgin cohorts. Bunjevac’s retelling follows Benny, a sexually deviant man who, coming across an alluring former classmate, concocts an elaborate, disturbing rape fantasy. Inked in her lush, stippled, illustrative style, Bunjevac crafts a gripping, noirish, Nabokovian tale, by turns surreal and harrowing, that turns the male gaze inside-out. Bezimena is both a radical examination of the misconceptions surrounding rape culture and an artistic and psychological tour de force.
Note: The digital edition (5/29/2019) for this volume was released before the print edition.
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