‘Subversion dipped in beauty is revolution’, declares LASTESIS with Set Fear On Fire. This poignant proclamation from the Chilean performance collective is a feminist call to, and from, women across South America. Unpacking the violent misogyny that underpins women’s everyday lives, their manifesto leaves readers with as much hope as it does anger.

Chapters begin with excerpts from the group’s previously performed works, reminding readers that all art can be (and is) a form of resistance. The entire book is text as performance in the least pretentious way. It’s not forced, and the ‘performance’ doesn’t rely on external material, whether visual or sound-based. Set Fear On Fire is both its own powerful thing and part of something wider.

There’s a beauty to the chorus of it. Opening with ‘Us’, a collaborative ‘we’ is called upon from the offset. LASTESIS talk as one while pulling in other women’s voices and narratives, platforming a collectivity and community with a distinct respect for the individual: it’s hopeful to witness. 

And such expansiveness reaches into its audience, too. While it’s neither an introductory feminism lesson nor an impossibly complex dissection on the matter, there’s something for us all here. In a glossary entitled ‘Brief Conceptual Notes Before We Proceed’, LASTESIS establish key definitions used throughout which acts as a much-needed welcome into the text. From here on in, there’s a sense that this is a text that wants you to get it; to access it and all its inner workings. This shouldn’t feel revolutionary, and yet it does. 

Humming with rage, its central arguments become almost chant-like, their predictability a comfort rather than a bore. And, of course, in many ways nothing all that new is being said here; however, its attention to the patterns of our everyday and the ease with which it dismantles mechanisms of misogyny are invaluable in approaching contemporary feminism. Women’s stories are interwoven without the usual clinical undertones of case studies; a feat to witness in itself. Similarly, its brevity feels political: this is a slim little book to be slipped into back pockets for the moments between caretaking, working and patriarchy. 

There are instances where chapters feel confused, the stated subject matter wandering into something entirely different. But these slippages are worth it for each feminist teaching we pick up on the way. There are few commands; a collective will is roused through sharing knowledge, understanding and experiences, rather than dictation. In many ways, it’s a forceful text; in others, there’s a real grace to the gentleness with which it takes us.

Set Fear On Fire is published by Verso on Tuesday 7 March.