The 2021 version of Querida was designed as a surrealistic approach to a literary project. It was a collaboration of five different authors contributing material that followed a previously roughly-sketched plot. Carlos Atanes took the reins, and with empathy and prudence forged transitions and made loose ends meet. A stubborn gemstone with a strange cut emerged, challenging in many ways. But as charming as the content and stylistic wildness of the original work was, the desire to give the material that Carlos had developed so wonderfully and intricately a more coherent form emerged.

Thus for this reincarnation of Querida a new approach was agreed. Carlos alone would spell out the story of the sufferings and self-empowerment of the female puppet, ironing out the creases and unifying the narrator’s voice. The result is a perfectly balanced piece of work, a marriage of fantastic literature and eroticism. To match the new text, Jan van Rijn produced a new set of illustrations, based on the earlier version but introducing much more colour and variety.

In the new Querida, as in the original, we follow the story of a woman who oscillates between her existence as a wooden marionette and a human, fighting above all for her status, her liberation from suffering as a victim, and her self-empowerment.

Even when the puppeteer moulds her in the image of his cousin who died in a tragic accident, clearly with the intention of satisfying his erotic desires, Querida’s sensually-charged lust for battle emerges in its delightful ambivalence. It is evident in every anatomical detail of the composition of her puppet body and in her first experiences in the human world. The puppeteer attempts to fix her in her objectification, resorting to anatomical fragmentation. Querida, however, evades this reduction with all the means at her disposal.

She allows herself to be led by marionette strings for a limited time.  Only for a while does it look as if Querida has succumbed to the evildoers, when her creator succeeds in turning the other dolls against her. She finally escapes this predicament with the help of her friends, the giant Mangiafuoco, who is in love with her, Romeo, who is surrounded by an erotic aura, and the fairy-like woman with the deep blue name Indigo.

The end result is a brutal revenge that rivals in every respect the cruelties known from ancient myth. The mighty Mangiafuoco, now a kind of companion to Querida, slaughters the diabolical Coppelius by biting off his head, and Querida herself murders the puppeteer.

Querida is published by Kraut and Rubies Publishing, in a limited numbered edition of 33 copies; more information and a YouTube introduction to the book can be found on the Kraut and Rubies website here.