Writing to exist and resist: narratives of women deprived of their liberty in the newspaper só isso!

Abstract

Using the Só Isso! (just that!) newspaper, as a source of research, produced by inmates of the Talavera Bruce Penitentiary, located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, this paper seeks to bring to light part of the trajectory of these women through their writing and contribute to reflection on the vicissitudes of female incarceration. Through these narratives that are born out of incarceration, women prisoners resist and express their existence in a dehumanizing context that seeks to erase their experiences and feelings. The paper circulated between 2004 and 2008 and was seen as a way of guaranteeing work for the inmates and a way of letting off steam, alleviating loneliness and recounting the difficulties of life in prison. In light of the above, I would like to discuss the newspaper's major themes, which concern motherhood in prison, religious practices and the struggle of these subjects for better living conditions. The newspaper Só Isso! represented a step forward in the sense that, through writing, these women were able to relieve their tensions, convey an idea of themselves, reinterpret their lives in the search for the reconstruction of their histories, to the extent that they reflected on their condition as inmates and projected a better future beyond the prison walls and bars.