Zicartola: Politics and Samba at the Home of Cartola and Dona Zica

Zicartola: Política e samba na casa de Cartola e D. Zica tells the story of legendary Zicartola, the pioneering samba house owned by Cartola, a great Mangueira sambista, and his wife, Dona Zica, a cook and former pastora of Mangueira. In less than two years working out of a house at Carioca St. 53, between 1963 and 1965, the environment created by couple influenced important cultural events in the turbulent 1960s.

There, Dona Zica ruled the kitchen and Cartola, the musical program. It was on their stage that old sambistas reappeared, such as Ismael Silva, Nelson Cavaquinho and Zé Kéti, and a new generation was born, featuring names such as Paulinho da Viola, for example, who received his first fees at Zicartola. With huge lines that extended up to Tiradentes Square, the house soon became a meeting point at the hectic time preceding the 1964 coup.

Featuring delicious backstage stories of this epic place, and testimonies from names such as Dona Zica, Carlos Lyra, Elton Medeiros, Ferreira Gullar, Paulinho da Viola, Nelson Sargento, Zicartola: Política e samba na casa de Cartola e D. Zica also includes images of the invitations, the menu, archival pictures, and information about the establishment’s reception in the media, showing that Zicartola gave people a lot to talk about and indicated its reasons to make history.

About the author
Maurício Barros de Castro was born in 1973, in Niterói (RJ), and lives in Rio de Janeiro. He’s a writer, researcher and independent curator. With a PhD in History from São Paulo University (USP), he’s a professor at the Arts Institute and the graduate programs in Arts (PPGARTES) and Art History (PPGHA) at the Rio de Janeiro State University (Uerj). He was a visiting professor at University of California, Berkeley. He was the curator of exhibits such as Carlos Vergara: Carnavais Revelados (Galeria Índica, 2016), Esqueleto: uma história do Rio (Galeria Aymoré, com Fred Coelho, 2019) and Pixinguinha: um maestro batuta (Museu de Arte do Rio, com Marcelo Campos e Julio Ludemir, 2022). He has authored, among other books, Arte e cultura: Ensaios (ed., 2019); Gilberto Gil: Refavela (2017); Carnaval-Ritual: Carlos Vergara e Cacique de Ramos (2021), a finalist of the 2022 Jabuti in the Non-Fiction/Arts category.

Specifications
Title Zicartola: Política e samba na casa de Cartola e dona Zica [Zicartola: Politics and Samba at the Home of Cartola and Dona Zica]
Author Maurício Barros de Castro
Publisher Cobogó
Cover Daniel Trench
Page count 168
ISBN 978-65-5691-112-0
Format Softcover
Size 14 x 21 cm