Working Class Literature

Podcast and Twitter for musing on working-class writing, literature in general and the conditions which make them possible. Sister project to @wrkclasshistory

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

Part 1 of our two-part podcast about Jack Hilton out now! A working-class author who survived WWI, became a trade union and unemployed activist, and long-term friend of George Orwell, before being pushed into obscurity. And now rediscovered.

Learn more: https://t.co/3shDNnTwiR

[Working Class History @wrkclasshistory]

A literary event like no other: the Florence Working-Class Literature Festival, held at a car parts factory under the control of the workers they tried to fire four years ago.

Listen tomorrow at 4pm BST on Patreon: https://t.co/ie3Z7cGMse

[Working Class History @wrkclasshistory]

This Wed at 4pm BST: new @workingclasslit episode, Live from the Working-Class Literature Festival! We went to Florence to speak to authors, activists, and organisers about the festival, and what's next in the GKN struggle.

Listen on Patreon: https://t.co/ie3Z7cGMse

[Working Class History @wrkclasshistory]

The festival takes place at the ex-GKN car parts factory in Florence, which was seized by workers after they were fired in 2021. They've held the factory for 4+ years and plan to reopen it as a coop making eco goods.

Learn more in our previous eps here:
https://t.co/x2EXx6ksMx

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

@D14951351 Wow, I did not realise the BBC had done a version! Thanks for letting us know!

[Hongwei Bao (he/him) @PatrickBao1]

Full episode here https://t.co/h8GUJ7BNLW

[Hongwei Bao (he/him) @PatrickBao1]

Listen to Maghiel van Crevel reading one of Mu Cao’s poems, from @workingclasslit https://t.co/ke159iEkA7

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

The full series is available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts. The webpage for this series also contains more information including sources, further reading, images, videos, and soon a full transcript. Check them out here: https://t.co/1fW7G5YSFF

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

'Working for the Boss in a Black Factory' by Mu Cao, a former migrant worker and China's first openly gay poet (who came out when being gay was still officially considered a mental illness in China)

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

'When I Watched the World Cup What Did I See' by Xiao Hai:

"Their million-dollar moving ads on the pitch have nothing to do with me
Youth slipped away is the only thing that’s mine"

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

'I Speak of Blood' by Xu Lizhi, a former Foxconn worker who, like many Foxconn workers at the time, was driven to suicide in 2014 by the harsh conditions of the factory:

"I speak of us, ants struggling through the swamp of life one by one"

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

'Life' by Zheng Xiaoqiong, probably the most successful of China's migrant worker poets: "My youth is set alight by memories / But dies out on the assembly line seven days a week"

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

Our three-part series on Chinese migrant worker poetry is out now for everyone. The series included readings of some of our favourite migrant worker poems. Here's a thread with just a few of them 🧵

[Palestine Festival of Literature @PalFest]

Heeding the call made by the absolute majority of Palestinian civil society more than twenty years ago, the signatories of this declaration are taking a collective, sector-wide stance for Palestinian liberation.

Press release here: https://t.co/Petzw740FV

[Palestine Festival of Literature @PalFest]

BREAKING: Today, more than 1000 authors are launching a mass boycott of Israeli publishers who are complicit in the dispossession of the Palestinian people.

This declaration amounts to the largest cultural boycott of Israeli institutions in history.

https://t.co/SGewfi4DYn

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

The full series is available on our website or wherever you get your podcasts. The webpage for this series also contains more information including sources, further reading, images, videos, and soon a full transcript. Check them out here: https://t.co/1fW7G5YSFF

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

Our three-part series on Chinese migrant worker poetry is out now for everyone. The series included readings of some of our favourite migrant worker poems. Here's a thread with just a few of them 🧵

[Working Class Literature @workingclasslit]

'Working for the Boss in a Black Factory' by Mu Cao, a former migrant worker and China's first openly gay poet (who came out when being gay was still officially considered a mental illness in China)