Mind Switch is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel by Damon Knight

Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

. It follows two individuals, a reporter for Paris-Soir

Paris-Soir

Paris-Soir was a large-circulation daily newspaper in Paris, France from 1923-1944.Its first issue came out in 4 October 1923. After June 11, 1940, the same publisher, Jean Prouvost, continued its publication in Vichy France: Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, Marseille, and Vichy while in occupied Paris, it...

and an intelligent alien at the Berlin Zoo, after their minds have been switched by a time-travel experiment gone awry.

A shorter version of the novel was published in Galaxy

Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...

magazine in April 1963. In 1966 it was published under the title The Other Foot.

Knight has called this novel his favorite among his books.

Synopsis

In the year 2002, the Berlin Zoo acquires a new specimen: "Fritz", a biped from "Brecht's planet." Fritz is intelligent, and his keepers treat him with a mix of courtesy and disdain; he is kept in a display with another (presumably female) biped and the two are required to work for a living, transcribing tapes made by explorers to their planet. One day, Martin Naumchik, a human male, is visiting the zoo when his personality and that of the biped are interchanged. The switch is the unintended consequence of an experiment in time travel that takes place at another location. The remainder of the story follows the two characters as they come to terms with their new bodies and new feelings. Martin quickly becomes aware of the degradation of being a zoo animal, while Fritz is forced to cope with life in a confusing and threatening alien society. Martin tries, and fails, to convince his captors that he is imprisoned in the biped's body; the biped, in Martin's body, eventually comes into contact with Martin's colleagues and his lover, and manages to continue with Martin's life.

The novel also deals wryly with the theme of sexual identity. Because Fritz is provided with inguinal glands

Superficial inguinal lymph nodes

The superficial inguinal lymph nodes form a chain immediately below the inguinal ligament.They lie deep to Camper's fascia which overlies the femoral vessels at medial aspect of the thigh....

resembling a human male's, he is presumed to be male. But it turns out that the organ has nothing to do with reproduction: Fritz is a female, and the smaller primate with whom he shares a cage is a male. To reproduce, the female aggressively bites off an egglike knob from the male's forehead containing the semen. Martin (in Fritz's body), and the reader, only learn this at the end of the novel, when he is overcome by passion and commits the act.