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First published in English in 1978, this classic book contains the testimony of Domitila Barrios de Chungara, the wife of a Bolivian tin miner. Blending firsthand accounts with astute political analysis, Domitila describes the hardships endured by Bolivia's vast working class and her own efforts at organizing women in the mining community. The result is a gripping narrative of class struggle and repression, an important social document that illuminates the reality of capitalist exploitation in 1970s Bolivia. Domitila Barrios de Chungara was born in 1937 in the Siglo XX mining town in Bolivia. She became politically active in the 1960s and, in 1975, participated in the UN International Women's Year Tribunal in Mexico. In 2005 she was nominated alongside 999 other "Peace Women" for a collective Nobel Peace Prize.… (more)
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By sally tarbox on 21 Dec. 2017
Format: Paperback
This narrative of Bolivian social activist Domitila de Chungara can't be called great literature - but it is an extremely informative and horrifying work, focusing on the plight of Bolivia's poor in the 60s
Brought up in the tin mining region of Potosi, the people were oppressed by the mine owners and the government, in league with the US. Low wages, constant attempts from above to stamp out an increasingly unionized workforce through threats, fomenting discord - and also through torture and massacres - this makes for grim reading. As a wife and mother of seven, the author's activities resulted in opposition from her husband, threats against her children and prison and beatings.
She shows an astonishing resolution, from when she first took up the socialist cause (and for which she was disfellowshipped from the Jehovah's Witnesses.)
Chungara's interviews were written down by Brazilian journalist and social anthropologist Moema Viezzer.