Bookstore in São Paulo rescues peripheral voices with writings by women only

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (EFE) In a modest room located on one of the busiest streets in downtown São Paulo, the ‘Gato sem Rabo’ Bookstore opened its doors novel and pioneering proposal in Brazil: to exhibit, sell and discuss works written exclusively by women.

It only takes one step to leave behind the noise and honking of Amaral Gurgel Street, one of the most important streets in the capital of São Paulo, and dive into the cozy room, which quickly invites you to embark on the infinite possibilities offered by the universe of books.

On its shelves, spread over 65 square meters, books range from the latest fiction releases to historical and academic works and poetry, short stories, children’s literature, and exact sciences.

In total, there are about 1,800 titles written only by women, an “unprecedented” movement that seeks to correct a “hole” of “historical” injustices experienced by women over the centuries.

“Our goal is to demystify that false notion that narrative written by men, that literature written by men, is universal because it is not so,” expresses in an interview with Efe, the bookstore owner, Johanna Stein.

“Women have always written a lot, on different subjects, but they were condemned to fulfill social obligations that kept them away from literary production,” she adds.

Trained in visual arts, the bookseller began to give life to her business in 2018, when she encountered “difficulties” finding bibliographic references of women thinkers.

She then researched and catalog works produced by them in a project that, three years later, would be “formalized in a neighborhood bookstore.”

“I realized the importance and necessity of cataloging, discovering, and rediscovering these women, bringing them to the center of the literary dialogue,” she says.

Due to the covid-19 pandemic, which is still out of control in Brazil, Stein had to postpone the inauguration of her space for almost a year, which finally opened its doors a week ago and has already proven to be a success among the people of São Paulo.

“We had a robust and exceptional reception from the reading public. I believe that without the collaboration and welcome of our community, it would not be possible to bring this project to life,” he celebrates.

PERIPHERAL VOICES

The name Gato sem Rabo (Cat without a Tail) refers to the famous essay “A Room of One’s Own” (1929) by the revolutionary British writer Virginia Woolf, where the author calls women who dare to venture into the universe of fiction literature in a world dominated and shaped by men “cats without tails”.

“(The name) is a tribute to those cats without tails, to those women who, despite being deprived of time, of legitimacy, of a space that was theirs alone, had the courage to write,” the bookseller stresses.

More than just a bookstore, Stein believes that Gato sem Rabo represents a space that reflects the demands of today’s world, including readers’ yearning for a more diverse and plural literary scene capable of presenting new perspectives.

“People began to demand more and more for those peripheral voices that were left out of the universal canons for so long. Black voices, women’s voices, and those of so many other cats without tails, those weirdos that were left on the periphery for so long,” she says.

Therefore, despite the crisis facing the publishing market in Brazil – which last year alone shrank by 8.8% – the bookseller is confident in the success of the project, which she defines as much more “a movement for reading than a bookstore business”.

Thus, whether through debates, discussion wheels, or the simple act of flipping through the pages of a book, Stein is quite clear that the Gato sem Rabo arrives to help build new possibilities through a “journey” through diverse perspectives that challenge traditional narratives.

“Our goal is not to exclude anyone. It’s really about looking at everything and everyone that was excluded for so long and putting them at the core of the literary dialogue,” she qualifies.