You can listen to it here , it is seven minutes long, from 30 minutes in. It is not, sadly, very enlightening. This is something of a shame, as the religious sex worker, or prostitute, is something of a staple of literature. Violetta is not what the BBC would call a sex worker in the normal sense, but she is a grande horizontale, otherwise known as a poule de luxe. It is worth remembering that in the Third Act, as she lies abed dying, she makes it clear that she has seen the priest, and received the sacraments.
In short, is Catholicism the friend or the enemy here? And I say Catholicism, not religion, because I think Catholicism and sex work really do somehow link up. Thanks for reading The Chemist of Catania! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. She has no totally reliable friends but God. From the modern Marxist perspective one could see the sex worker as revolutionary, as she throws off the constraints of bourgeois society and lives as an outlaw.
However, classical Marxism see prostitutes as social undesirables: they were fiercely persecuted by Chairman Mao. Because prostitutes are a staple of literature, they do appear in my book, which will see the light of day online soonish. Considering the slums of Catania, and having walked through them, one could not but fail to notice the many prostitutes standing or sitting outside their ground floor rooms waiting for clients.
What are their inner lives like? This was the question that the Radio Four segment hinted at, but without providing any satisfactory clues to an answer. How do they feel about their work, about the men they deal with, about their lives and, crucially, about their children, if they have any, and many do?
How do small boys growing up feel about having mothers who work in that way? These are some of the questions I tackle in The Chemist of Catania , and in its sequel The Nymph of Syracuse , both of which feature a prostitute called Anna, who is of Romanian origin.
