Episode description

Patrícia Galvão (Pagu) published Industrial Park in 1933 at the age of 21. It was translated into English by Elizabeth and K. David Jackson in 1993. This modernist proletarian novel is at once an intimate window into the emotional lives of working class women in the industrial district of São Paulo, a biting satire of the social and sexual mores of the Brazil’s decadent bourgeoisie, and an eyewitness account of the fiercely militant labor politics of 1920’s Brazil.

We discuss tragedy as a mode of history, Pagu’s incredible biography and her navigation of her roles as a party militant and experimental, bohemian artist, the tensions between anarchist and communist methods of revolutionary labor politics, the complicated relation between desire and revolutionary politics, and how cool it is that people used to gas each other with ether at Carnival and why we should really bring that back.

Eternamente Pagu (1987): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFylqrCYB_U
A glamorized biopic about Pagu's early years. It's in Portuguese, so we didn't watch it, but it looks fun/interesting/maybe kinda bad but in a sort of sexy way.

https://twitter.com/unseenbookclub

Music by ex-official: https://exofficialexo.bandcamp.com/

Art by Eli Liebman: https://elimack.weebly.com/