Child of the Dark

A powerful and gripping memoir depicting the harsh realities of life in the favelas of Brazil in the 1950s, and one woman’s resilience in the face of poverty, racism, and social inequality. Living in poverty in a Brazilian favela, or “slum;” Carolina tried to scrape together a living by collecting recyclables. Among the trash, she found notebooks and papers that she salvaged to write on, and she used these found papers to craft novels, poetry, plays, letters to authorities—as well as her own journal. In this stunning diary of perseverance in the face of adversity, violence, and starvation, Carolina Maria de Jesus offers a firsthand account of life in the streets of São Paulo that, upon its first publication over 50 years ago, drew international attention to the plight of the poor. A unique historical account and a critical work in the canon of Afro-Brazilian literature, Child of the Dark offers an essential perspective on the realities and cruelties of life in a favela at the beginning of the “modernization” of the city of São Paulo. Its themes of struggles against marginalization, classism, and racism continue to resonate today. Includes eight pages of photographs and an afterword by Robert M. Levine Translated from the Portuguese by David S. Clair