Joana Estrela - Propaganda

21st volume of Mercantologia, a collection dedicated to reissuing lost material from the world of zines. Edited by Marcos Farrajota and published by Associação Chili Com Carne to commemorate the first edition of this work, originally released by Plana Press in 2014.

The edition was reissued by the author, both versions written in English. The book design replicates the original layout by Luís Camanho and Ana Isabel Carvalho. It includes a translated excerpt from the first edition’s preface by Anna Shepperd and a new foreword by Paulo (Livraria Aberta).

The best synopsis was written by you, near the end of the book: The person who doesn’t know what to say wears a T-shirt that says it for them: “I Survived Baltic Pride 2013.” That’s better for me, then — I no longer have to summarize it, especially since a book from 2014 reissued in 2025 carries more history than just the school year of volunteering at the Lithuanian Gay League. From activism, as often with cultural events, what tends to remain is a vague collective memory — or worse, a sentence in a chronology. We remember the years, the causes, and the big achievements, when there are any, but not the poster you drew or the meetings late into the night. Unless, of course, it lives on in the oral histories of the people involved. How many book fairs, exhibitions, film cycles, talks, and more or less informal groups have come together and fallen apart over the years, like a dotted line tracing the energy each person was able to give in that moment? Because, as you highlight here, the history of the movement is the history of those who make the movement. And history is slow. When you return to Vilnius to present Propaganda, in its original English version by Plana Press, they interview you for the LGL website. They ask you about Portuguese literature and LGBTQ activism. Among other things, you reply:
“This is the first comic book that is more specific on the subject to be published in Portugal.” A decade later, that’s still true.