AUTHOR: José Ángel Mañas
PUBLISHER: ALT Autores
GENRE: Science Fiction
READER’S NAME: Julia Shirek Smith
DATE: May 31, 2022

Madrileño Momar Mbayé’s wages as a day laborer will never be enough to pay for the leukemia treatments his young son needs. So Momar reluctantly signs a lucrative contract to lend his Black body to a White man. La experiencia U-Feeling, the Spanish branch of a multi-national body swapping corporation is  handling the details. In the world of the future, spending a day or a week as someone else is trendy, just for a  thrill or from a desire to empathize with a different way of life. Advanced digital technology makes body exchange a snap. There are rules and regulations, of course. These are enumerated in the Spanish Civil Code and enforced by an official  Department of Body Exchange.

As  Momar nervously heads to the body swapping clinic, he wonders why anyone would want to spend a  few hours as a Black man during the current period of heightened racial tensions brought on by the police killing of a Guinean immigrant. He finds the answer as he waits in the cubicle outside the exchange procedure room where he is to be put to  sleep in another’s body and wake up a few hours later  30, 000 Euros richer. Happening to glance into a half-opened locker he spots a pistol and a length of rope sealed in plastic, placed there for the  temporary Black man to take along as he heads out  to the  streets of Madrid.

Frightened and angry, Momar flees the clinic, armed with  the pistol and rope and the bitter realization of how his racial identity was about to be used. And he still has to get money fast or his little boy will die. He invades a luxury apartment in the upscale Salamanca neighborhood. Terrorizing  the servants at gunpoint, he grabs  family valuables and takes 50, 000 Euros from a wall safe. And then a gratuitous act of violence: he rapes the pious and proper blonde lady of the  house in the grossest way imaginable. Hours  later, Momar is apprehended as he wanders through Atocha Station, valuables in tow, the money missing.

An adroit narrative structure condenses this story into 120 pages. The introduction is a convoluted legalese document for U-Feeling clients listing the 10 basics of a body swapping contract. Then come 10 chapters about Momar, delivered as the verbatim transcript of his interrogation by two policewomen. Momar’s statements have the flavor of the real speech of an articulate, observant person who speaks flawless Spanish. That’s surprising to his interrogators. Their subject patiently explains he’s been speaking the language since he left his native Senegal at the age of 3 and although he makes his living as a construction worker he’s studied sociology  at the university. When the session is over, the two rather naïve officers have  learned  much about Momar’s spotless past  and about what it’s like to be a person of color in a White society. They have also gathered plenty of evidence to send to the prosecutor’s office. As Chapter 10 ends, Momar is about to board  the van that will take him to jail to await trial. Then five asterisks preface a change of scene leading to one of those ironic twists often found in well crafted detective or supernatural fiction: Momar has done exactly what the man who wanted to borrow his body had planned to do.

Body swapping is a trope for fiction and TV mini-series ad nauseam. This novel, however, does not follow the usual scenario of such sagas: here the theme is used to examine the pervasiveness of racism and the way negative stereotypes of “the other” can penetrate the consciousness of  those denigrated and influence their behavior. Or, to put it another way, one could say La experiencia U-Feeling is about mind swapping rather than body swapping.

 José Ángel Mañas is considered one of the leading writers of Spanish neo-realist fiction. His first novel, Historias de Kronen (1994) has become  a cult classic. Mañas is an amazingly prolific author of mysteries, historical novels, and fiction depicting modern Spanish society. Many of his books have been translated into French and German. It seems surprising that he is as yet unknown to English-language readers.

An American audience would find much that is familiar here: the atmosphere of the Madrid of the future is much like that of any major US city today. An  English-language version of this novel would be a fine way to introduce Mañas to a new public. A translator up to the challenge of  making the dialogue sound as natural in English as it does in the original text could have fun with this book.  A map of Madrid showing metro and train stations and the various districts might be included for readers who don’t  know the city.