Imagine doing a manual job while someone reads a novel aloud to the entire room. That person is employed to read. Listening is part of the working day.
Cuban tobacco factories developed this tradition in the nineteenth century. The lector de tabaquería read newspapers, novels and other texts while workers rolled cigars.
The workers could help choose the readings and historically contributed money to pay the reader. Literature became something you listened to together, discussed and argued about while your hands kept working.
There’s something beautiful about that arrangement. A factory full of people following the same story, waiting for the next chapter.
You could finish your shift annoyed with your supervisor and furious with a fictional character. Plenty to discuss on the way home.
