The post-'68 psychoanalyst and philosopher visits a newly democratic
Brazil in 1982 and meets future President Luis Ignacia Lula da Silva: a
guide to the radical thought and optimism at the root of today's
Brazil.
Yes, I believe that there is a multiple people, a people of mutants, a
people of potentialities that appears and disappears, that is embodied
in social, literary, and musical events.... I think that we're in a
period of productivity, proliferation, creation, utterly fabulous
revolutions from the viewpoint of this emergence of a people. That's
molecular revolution: it isn't a slogan or a program, it's something
that I feel, that I live....--from Molecular Revolution in Brazil
Following Brazil's first democratic election after two decades of
military dictatorship, French philosopher Félix Guattari traveled
through Brazil in 1982 with Brazilian psychoanalyst Suely Rolnik and
discovered an exciting, new political vitality. In the infancy of its
new republic, Brazil was moving against traditional hierarchies of
control and totalitarian regimes and founding a revolution of ideas and
politics. Molecular Revolution in Brazil documents the conversations,
discussions, and debates that arose during the trip, including a
dialogue between Guattari and Brazil's future President Luis Ignacia
Lula da Silva, then a young gubernatorial candidate. Through these
exchanges, Guattari cuts through to the shadowy practices of
globalization gone awry and boldly charts a revolution in practice.
Assembled and edited by Rolnik, Molecular Revolution in Brazil is
organized thematically; aphoristic at times, it presents a lesser-known,
more overtly political aspect of Guattari's work. Originally published
in Brazil in 1986 as Micropolitica: Cartografias do desejo, the book
became a crucial reference for political movements in Brazil in the
1980s and 1990s. It now provides English-speaking readers with an
invaluable picture of the radical thought and optimism that lies at the
root of Lula's Brazil.
