Book, Pagu: life and work[LS]

In 1982, when Pagu: vida-obra was released by publisher Brasiliense, almost nothing was known about this important character of modernism in Brazil. Apart from the photographs that documented her stunning beauty and the aura of scandal provided by her participation in the noisy “second teeth” of the anthropophagic movement (amplified by her tumultuous relationship with Oswald de Andrade), little remained of Pagu. His press articles were scattered across now-defunct newspapers; his books, still unpublished or already out of print; the history of his political activism, erased. However, the poet and scholar of the history of modernism Augusto de Campos surprised literary circles by creating in this sui generis anthology the most complete and ambitious recovery of the artistic, literary and journalistic production of the author of Parque Industrial. Since its launch, an unavoidable reference on Pagu, and long out of print, the book reappears in a revised and expanded edition, which includes new texts, dozens of illustrations and photographs. This “biobook”, as Campos defines it, covers the most important moments in Patrícia’s career, a life-work full of memorable events and works. Enlistment in the ranks of the modernist avant-garde, the short marriage with Oswald, the trip around the world in 1933, the communist militancy and the years in prison serve as a prologue to the second part of Pagu's life-work, from the 1940s onwards, marked by intense collaboration with newspapers and theatrical performance, always in favor of the avant-garde. The multifaceted portrait of the figure that emerges from this biobibliographical itinerary allows her to be included on an equal footing in a select gallery of women of high modernism worldwide.