This book focuses on the cultural and gender dimensions of informal survivalism. It provides a fascinating insight into women's use of soap operas to reconfigure suffering, pleasure, sexuality and embodiment.

Foreword by Juliet Mitchell; Introduction; Chapter 1. Theodicy and Ideology: ‘Everybody Needs an Ideology to Live’; Chapter 2. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth; But in the Meantime They Shall Watch Telenovelas; Chapter 3. Suffering Soaps; Fragmented Bodies; Chapter 4. The Politics of the Vagina; Chapter 5. The Redemptive Womb; Chapter 6. The Invisible Back; Final Feliz; Illustrations; Table: Women Respondents; Glossary; Bibliography; Index

Lisa Beljuli Brown is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She gained her PhD in social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.