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The Life and Death of Carolina Maria De Jesus (Dialogos)
The Life and Death of Carolina Maria De Jesus - Dialogos Author:Robert M. Levine, Jose Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy, University of New Mexico Press In the dozen years Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-1977) lived in a Sao Paulo, Brazil, shanty slum, she survived by rummaging for junk. She also kept a diary of her abject poverty. Black, illegitimate, and poor, she suddenly became at age forty-six Brazil's best-selling author when a book drawn from her diaries appeared in 1960. An English transla... more »tion, "Child of the Dark," was published in 1962 and sold over 300,000 copies in the United States in a decade. "Newsweek" heralded her book as "a desperate, terrifying outcry from the slums of Sao Paulo. . . one of the most astonishing documents of the lower depts ever printed." Collaborating with a Brazilian colleague, Levine tells the story of Carolina's life, giving particular emphasis to the years following her publishing success, and engages in a provocative debate over what Carolina's life reveals about such issues as racism in Brazil, the rigidity of that country's class system, and the process of constructing an identity amid constant degradation and proverty.« less