This exploration of class, feminism, and cultural identity focuses on the work of four writers: Mia Couto, Jose Saramago, Clarice Lispector and J.M. Coetzee. It argues that these writers are political in the sense that they bring to the forefront issues pertaining to the power of literature to represent, misrepresent, and debate matter related to different subaltern subjects: the postcolonial subject, the poor subject, and the female subject.