Shifting the Universe:
Spoken Histories of Work & Resistance
Published by Candace Wolf
Discover an international assembly of working people who exercise their inalienable right to bear witness—speaking in vivid detail about their daily labor and the brilliant strategies of resistance they put into practice to stand up to injustice and oppression. Their stories are filled with courageous deeds, dramatic struggles, and acts of genuine solidarity belonging to the rich tradition of popular literature.
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Reviewed by Pete Tucker, contributing journalist for the Huffington Post
How Change Happens: 18 Acts of Resistance
“People say slavery is done… [but] it’s still there—in the corner,” says Gulnahar Alam, a domestic worker who, like many others, suffered workplace abuses. To combat this exploitation, often hidden away in employers’ homes, Alam began organizing. “People feel very powerful and so much more confident when they see that they are not alone. They no longer feel ashamed.”
Alam’s story is one of 18 brought to life in Shifting the Universe: Spoken Histories of Work & Resistance by first-time author Candace Wolf. Professionally, Wolf is a storyteller; she’s also a keen listener. And from 2010-2015 she carved out time to hear the stories of regular people—from different walks of life and parts of the globe—who, despite serious challenges, evolve into troublemakers of the best kind… They are here, in Shifting the Universe, where readers hear from, in their own voices: an anti-war bicycle repairman in LA; a midwife inspired by Elijah Muhammad’s call to “take care of our own”; an Egyptian factory worker-turned-labor leader; the founder of the political art group Bread and Puppet Theater; and Roger Toussaint, a union leader born and raised in Trinidad, who led a major 2005 strike that won rights for New York’s beleaguered transit workers.
Shifting the Universe provides a rich tapestry of resistance. These individuals are not so much great people, as ordinary folks who set out to do great things. They don’t always succeed, but what else is there do but try? That’s what a forest guardian in Ecuador asks. “How can I resign?... To drop that defense would be to doom our generation—to condemn my children,” says Marlon Rene Santi Gualingo, whose indigenous community has been fighting for its survival for generations.
With this book, Wolf offers readers powerful examples of what’s possible. “I am proud not to have rested,” writes Wolf, “until I… stitched their words together into this ballad of work and resistance.”