Book, Letters to a black woman[LS]

Antillean Françoise Ega worked in family homes in Marseille, France. One of his little pleasures was reading Paris Match magazine, in which he came across a text about Carolina Maria de Jesus and her Bedroom. He identified himself promptly. And he started writing "letters" — never delivered — to the Brazilian author. In them, she described her daily work and exploitation in France, the difficulties, the injustice in social relations, the subordinate (and often humiliating) position to which so many women like her, with black skin and originating from a French colony in the Caribbean, were relegated. . Little by little, he became aware and started to fight for his rights. When he died in 1976, he was an important name in French civil society. Letters to a Black Woman, published posthumously, is one of the most significant and moving literary documents about female exploitation and racism in the 20th century. Conceived as a set of letters, dated between 1962 and 1964, the text gains depth and stylistic variety as the author delves into the writing process — to the point where the book can be read like a novel. Among its characters, in addition to the nannies, maids and cleaners, there are also the authoritarian (and narrow-minded) bosses and their spoiled children. The main tension occurs in the relationship between employers and employees: the imperial attitude of some and the complete lack of rights of the others. These are sometimes shocking stories of workers without access to healthcare, vacations or even minimally comfortable housing. All of this is reported in a poignant and expressive way, with the Brazilian writer as the "ideal reader", who, throughout her career, had similar experiences. Because both, Ega and Carolina, fought for the most basic thing: dignity in life and literature.