El Angel de Sodoma

El angel de Sodoma (The Angel from Sodom, 1927) is the first novel in Spanish on male homosexuality. Written by the Cuban-Spanish writer Alfonso Hernandez-Cata (1885-1940) it tells the tragic story of Jose-Maria, the protagonist, and his continuous struggle with his homosexual instincts. Not unlike the novel, the sexological science of the time thought that homosexuality was an illness and not a crime. The second edition of El angel de Sodoma (1928) on which this edition is based, showcases a prologue by the Spanish thinker and endocrinologist Gregorio Maranon and an epilogue by the lawyer and politician Luis Jimenez de Asua in which the idea of homosexuality as illness is emphasized. What is missing though, and what this edition highlights, is that homosexuality has not only a somber side, as depicted in El angel de Sodoma: Alvaro Retana's short novels, for example, offer a more positive and optimistic view of homosexual desire. As the introduction to this edition and the numerous footnotes highlight, El angel de Sodoma is a modernist novel, influenced both by Latin American Modernism and by European Symbolism and its decadent aesthetics. But it is also a harshly naturalist account of modernity and tradition struggling with each other. El angel de Sodoma would be of general interest to courses and seminars on literature, sexuality and gender, and the history of Western thought. They would also be of interest to courses on Spanish literature and culture.