THE
CAUTIONARY
MARIA
CAROLINA
TALE
OF
DE JESUS*
RobertM. Levine
University
ofMiami,CoralGables
CarolinaMaria de Jesu'swas a fiercelyproud black Brazilianwoman
who lived in a Sao Paulo favelawith her threeillegitimatechildren(each
with a different
father).She had learned to read and writeby continuing
to study on her own afteronly two years of primaryschool. In 1958
fragmentsof her diarycame to the attentionof an enterprisingjournalist,
Audalio Dantas, who helped her get it published. For a brief period,
Carolina Maria de Jesusbecame an internationalcelebrityas theauthorof
the best-sellingbook in Brazilian publishing history.For many reasons,
however,Carolina fell fromfavor:the rise of a militarydictatorshipin
1964,which led to an accompanyingreactionagainst social criticism,and
especially the ways in which she handled her fame and related to the
press and the literaryelite. Withina few years, she was forcedto move
back intothefavelaand scavengefora living.A briefflurryofpublicityin
1969 about her fallen condition prompted a slight improvementin her
circumstances,but she was soon forgotten
again. Carolina died in 1977,on
the verge of indigence. Her complete life storyhas never been told, and
most Brazilians today are unaware that a black faveladain the 1960s
became the symbol (to foreigners,at least) of the struggleto rise above
poverty.Most Brazilians neitherread her books nor consider themnoteworthy.Evidently,the authorof what TheNew YorkTimescalled a 'rarely
matched essay on the meaning and the feelingof hunger,degradation,
and want" touched no nerve in the Brazilian sensibility.1
Carolina's storyis a cautionarytale thatreflectsnot onlyon herbut
on the social system of which she was a part. An impoverishedblack
woman with an aggressive,mercurialpersonality,Carolina was remark*This essay derives froman ongoing oral historyresearchprojectin collaborationwith
studentsand facultyin the oral historyprogram of the Departamento de Hist6ria at the
Universidade de Sao Paulo. I wish to acknowledge the enthusiasticparticipationof Juliano
Spyerin Sao Paulo and CristinaMehrtensin Coral Gables as well as thecollaborationofJose
Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy. Useful comments on draftsof the manuscriptwere made by
Daphne Patai,Martha Huggins, Darlene Sadlier,and Sandra FernandesErickson.An earlier
versionappeared as an occasional paper in theseries produced by theHelen Kellogg Center
at the Universityof Notre Dame.
1. Cited in the 1993 Penguin USA catalogue ModernHistory,p. 21.
55
LatinAmericanResearchReview
ably aware of the burden of the legacy of racism,gender prejudice,and
political neglect of the marginalized.She did not conformto prevailing
social values. For example, she claimed that she never marriedbecause
she refused to become dependent on a husband. Journalistsand politicians soon turned on her because although her ideas seemed docile
enough in her diary,in public she expressedherselfaggressively.Carolina
was what some in theUnited Statesmightcall an "uppity"black. Nor did
intellectualson the leftembrace her because her views were not strident
Worseyet,her attitudes
enough fortheirclass-based view of marginality.
were at times conservativeand even racist. The larger issue of impoverished migrantsfleeingto the citiesduring the administrationsof Presidents JuscelinoKubitschek and Janio Quadros (caused in part by the
displacementsresultingfrommultinationalindustrialpenetrationduring
thelate 1950s)was a touchyone in an atmospherewherepoliticiansstrove
foranswers as the favelas expanded endlessly.2
Carolina Maria de Jesu'swas born in 1914in the small interiortown
ofSacramentoin Minas Gerais,thedescendantofslaves probablybrought
to the mining region fromthe declining sugar region of northeastern
Brazil.3She had to drop out ofschool afterthesecond grade. Carolina had
not been a willing studentat first:her motherhad to spank her nearly
everyday to make her attend.Carolina laterclaimed to have been influwhom she termed 'an African
enced in her youth by her grandfather,
Socrates." When her mothertook a job on a farmoutside Sacramento,
Carolina had to quit school because none was available in thatarea. She
recalled spending her firstdays in the countrycrying.In time,however,
she came to enjoylivingin the country.At sixteen,Carolina moved southwest withher motherto the cityof Franca in the stateof Sao Paulo. There
theyboth worked as cooks and maids.4
In 1937,at the age of twenty-three,
Carolina followed a migration
patterntypicalof poor Brazilian women in settingout on her own from
Franca forthe metropolisof Sao Paulo. By thattime,her grandfatherhad
died (her mother'sfatewas not recorded).Carolina slept under bridges
and in doorways. She took various jobs, workingas a domestic,cleaning
2. See thecontroversialstudyby JaniceE. Perlman,TheMythofMarginality:
UrbanPoverty
and Politicsin Rio de Janeiro
(Berkeleyand Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress,1976),
esp. 242-45. Perlman found Rio de Janeirofavelados to be relativelywell-organized,hardworking,and resourceful,but specialistsworkingindependentlyin the slums of Sao Paulo
(including Nancy Cardia and Myriam de Castro) found those favelas not very organized
and filledwith independenttypes who did not trustone another.
3. Elsewhere Carolina was described as having been born as early as 1913and as late as
1921.See C6lia Pisa, introductionto the Frenchtranslation,Le Depotoir(Paris: A.-M. Metaillie, 1982),7; and RobertCollin, "Elle a ecritun best-seller,"Le Monde,Arquivo 0 Globo.This
and all otherclippings found in Brazilian newspaper files (arquivos)gave no furtherinformation as to dates or page numbers.
4. None of the prefacesor introductionsto her published books offermore than sketchy
details of her early life.
56
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
hotel rooms, workingin a hospital, and selling beer. At one point, she
even tried to join a circus. Carolina eventuallyfound employmentas a
maid for a white familybut was firedafterfour months: she was too
independent,she said, to clean up their messes. In addition, she had
become sexually active. She sought out white men, or they sought her.
Even when employed as a maid, she would slip away at nightto meet
lovers.Carolina's forcefulpersonalityseems to have asserted itselfin this
realm.
Carolina held six jobs as a maid sequentiallyand was dismissed
fromeach one. She worked fora shorttime fora physician,Euricledes
Zerbini,who gave her access to his books. In lateryears,she claimed also
to have worked brieflyforGeneral Goes Monteiro,the eminence gris of
the Estado Novo (1937-1945). She described him with her trademark
bluntnessas "physicallyrepulsivebut very smart."15
In 1948 a Portuguese sailor impregnatedand abandoned her.The
whitefamilyforwhom she was workingas a maid barredher fromtheir
house. At thatpoint,she had no choice but to move to a favela(a shantytownformigrants).By thelate 1940sin Sao Paulo, fifty
thousandfavelados
had settledin seven differentlocations.6Carolina selected the favela of
Caninde because it was close to a junkyard.She carried boards on her
head that she had removed froma church constructionsite five blocks
away and built a shack with her own hands, coveringit with scrap tin.
Her son Joaowas born threemonthslater.The roofalways leaked, rusting
her pots and pans and rottingthe mattressshe had found.Carolina hung
a sack over her window forprivacy and used a rag to cover her nose to
ward offthefavelastench.7When she had soap, she washed clothesin the
nearbyTiete River.
Carolina strapped her infantto her back and walked the streets
collecting paper and odds and ends in a burlap bag. She foraged in
garbage cans forfood and clothing.She was paid one cruzeiro(a quarter
of a U.S. cent) per pound forusable paper, bottles,and cans. On good
or thirtycents,on bad days, nothing.Two
days, she earned twenty-five
years later a Spaniard ("who was white and gave me love and money")
fatheredher second son, Jose Carlos. Afterhis birth,she had to pick
throughgarbage cans with two childrenstrapped to her.Later she wrote
that she met a rich white man who thoughtshe was pretty.She would
5. Regina Penteado, "Carolina,Vitimaou Louca?" Folhade Sao Paulo, 1 Dec. 1976,p. 31.
6. By contrast,less-industrialRio de Janeirocontainedby thistime two hundred favelas
with at least three hundred and thirty-seventhousand inhabitants.See David St. Clair,
Translator'sPreface,ChildoftheDark:TheDiaryofCarolinaMaria de Jesu's
(New York:Mentor
Books,1962),8. See also Lea Ramsdell, "National Housing Policy and theFavelain Brazil,"in
ThePoliticalEconomyofBrazil:PublicPracticesin an Era ofTransition,
edited by Lawrence S.
Graham and RobertH. Wilson (Austin: Universityof Texas Press, 1990),164-85.
7. 0 Globo(Rio de Janeiro),24 Oct. 1972; and St. Clair, Translator'sPreface,Childof the
Dark,8-9.
57
Review
LatinAmerican
Research
visit him,and he would give her food and money to buy clothesforher
sons. She wrote,'He didn't know fora long timethatI bore his daughter
... ; he has many servants,and I guess that'swhere Vera Eunice gets her
fancyways."8
Feistyand independent,Carolina refusedto conformto thebehavior expected of a favelada. She claimed to have been rejected by her
neighborsbecause of her airs as someone who could read and writeand
because she despised theirviolentbehaviorand penchantforlying.Carowhom she considered
lina was especiallyhostiletowardNortheasterners,
violentand unpredictable.As a kind of self-imposedtherapy,she began
to write poems, stories,and (beginning in 1955) a diary in notebooks
fashioned fromscraps of paper she found in the trash. Her firstentry,
dated 15 July1955,typifiesher hopeful yet rueful personal style: 'The
birthdayof my daughterVera Eunice. I wanted to buy a pair of shoes for
her,but theprice of food keeps us fromrealizingour desires.Actuallywe
are slaves to the cost of living. I found a pair of shoes in the garbage,
washed them,and patched them forher to wear."
Her diary expressed a revulsion over her miserable life softened
with touches of gentleness:'The sky was the color of indigo,"she wrote,
"and I understoodthatI adore myBrazil.My glance wentover to thetrees
that are planted at the beginning of Pedro Vicente Street.The leaves
moved by themselves.I thought:theyare applauding my gestureof love
to my country."9
Carolina always claimed to have been at odds with her fellow
favelados, but a close reading of her diary reveals that although she
consideredherselfa "loner,"she was viewed withinthe favelaas a stable
person who could be trusted.Many favelados knew thatshe could read
and write,and theyadmired her forit. Some even sent theirchildrento
her to be cared forwhen theywere released fromthe FEBEM (Fundac,o
Estadual para o Bem-Estardo Menor), the institutionforhomeless and
delinquentchildren.When a fighterupted,it was Carolina who called the
police. Thus she acted as an agent of stabilityand decency in the sordid
world of the favela.10
Some of Carolina's diaryentriesdisplayed bitterness.She wroteof
watchingrestaurantemployeesspill acid in theirgarbage cans so thatthe
poor could not use their leftovers,of sons who beat their parents, of
drunkenness,prostitution,and excrement,and of undernourishment,
hopelessness,and death. "Black is our life,"she concluded, "everythingis
black around us."1' Carolina chided politicians for displaying compas8. St. Clair, Translator'sPreface,Child of theDark, 10. Although St. Clair says 1943, he
probablymeant 1953.
9. Ibid., 37.
10. I am gratefulto CristinaMehrtensforthis observation.
11. ChildoftheDark,44.
58
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
sion during electionsand then forgetting
the poor. She also conjured up
powerfulimages: "What I revoltagainst is the greed of men who squeeze
othermen as if theywere squeezing oranges.112
In April of 1958,during a municipal electioncampaign, a twentyfour-yearold reporterforthe Diario da Noite,Audalio Dantas, was sentto
cover the opening of a playground near Caninde (politicians providing
election-evebenefitsis an old Brazilian political custom). Born in northeasternAlagoas, Dantas had come withhis fatherto thestateofSao Paulo
in the 1930s to open a food store in the interiorof the state. Although
Audalio had never studied journalism,he taught himselfto write in a
newsy styleand to hustle stories,shootingphotographsas well and submittingthemon a freelancebasis. Eventuallyhe was hiredby theFolhade
At the playground,Dantas witnessedan
Sao Paulo as a featurereporter.13
exchange of curses between men standing in the crowd who had been
competingwith the neighborhoodchildrenforplaces on the seesaws and
swings. He heard a black woman yell, "Ifyou continuemistreatingthese
children,I'm going to put all of your names in my book!'
When Dantas asked Carolina about her book, she took him to her
four-by-twelve-foot
shack (number9 on Rua A in Caninde) and showed
him pages filledwith fairytales, fictionabout rich people, poems about
the countryside,and entries fromher diary. On reading the scraps of
David
paper,Dantas found themto be what Carolina's Englishtranslator,
St. Clair, described as "crude, childlike words, much like a primitive
painting done in words.'14 Dantas selected one of her twenty-sixnotebooks, which togethercovered a three-yearspan. At first,however,she
refusedto let him take it to his editor,saying that her diary was "filled
with ugly thingsand ugly people.'15 Ignoringher protests,Dantas published excerptsfromthis notebook with an accompanyingstory.16
The news storyawakened sudden interestin Carolina.She received
no paymentuntil much later,however,even though Audalio Dantas devoted a greatdeal of timeto herwork and capitalized on it professionally.
As he announced to his readers, "I am not bringingyou a newspaper
storybut a revolution.117The newspaper published more of Carolina's
entries,and soon Dantas was made bureau chiefof 0 Cruzeiro,Brazil's
leading weekly magazine, which was published in Rio de Janeiro.As
Carolina's agent and mentor,he work for a year editing her diary and
publishingadditional excerpts.But he refusedto printany of her stories
12. Ibid., 47.
13. Audalio Dantas, interviewwith JulianoSpyer,Sao Paulo, 7 July1992.
14. St. Clair,Translator'sPreface,ChildoftheDark,12.
15. Ibid.JulianoSpyerspeculatesthatCarolina'sdiaryentriesfortheyears1955-1958mayhave
been sparsewhenDantas firstread themand thathe may haveworkedwithherto add material.
16. Folha da Noite(Sao Paulo), 9 May 1958,Arquivo Folha de Sao Paulo.
17. Quoted in Carlos Rangel, "Ap6s a Gl6ria,Solidao e Felicidade," Folhade SaioPaulo, 29
June1975,Arquivo Folhade SiaoPaulo.
59
Review
Research
LatinAmerican
or poems, which she feltwere more important.Afterencounteringinitial
reluctancefromseveral publishers to take the book as a whole, Dantas
finallyreached an agreementwith an editor at Livraria FranciscoAlves,
Lelio de Castro. Ironically,however,although Livraria Francisco Alves
was one of Brazil's most notable publishing houses (the publisher of
Euclydes da Cunha), even on the day that Carolina walked out of the
favelaat fiveo'clock in the morningwith her childrento see herbook for
thefirsttime,she had to sell junk she had foragedin orderto feed them.18
On the book's firstday of sale in August, one thousand people
queued up outside the publisher's book shop in Sao Paulo. Sittingat a
table outside the store,Carolina signed six hundred copies, talkingwith
each buyer.19Labor MinisterJoao Batista Ramos told the press that the
governmentwould give her a brick house, something she had often
dreamed and writtenabout in her diary.Carolina replied thatthe favelas
should be eradicated.20In three days' time, the initial printrun of ten
thousand copies sold out in Sao Paulo. Six monthslater,ninetythousand
copies had sold. Withina year,Carolina was rivalingJorgeAmado as the
most widely translatedBrazilian author.National press attentionon Carolina, in turn,helped establish the contextin which she went on to become an internationalsuccess. Her firstbook, Quartode Despejo (literally,
Room ofGarbage),was published in thirteenlanguages in fortycountries,
including the Soviet Union and Japan. This rapid internationalsuccess
representedan astonishingfeat:otherbooks subsequentlypublished in
Brazil describingthe wretchedliving conditionssufferedby lower-class
women neverachieved even a fractionof the attentionwon by Carolina's
writings.21
Audalio Dantas's introductionto Carolina's published diaryreveals
the extentto which he read his own assumptionsinto her words.22Carolina, however,perceived herselfas neithera curiositynor a heroine.Her
testimonyrecordedrealityas she saw it-no more,no less. But thepublica18. Carolina Maria de Jesuis,Casa de Alvenaria,11.
19. Copies were sold exclusivelyat the LivrariaFranciscoAlves fora week and were then
released to otherbooksellers.See St. Clair,Translator'sPreface,ChildoftheDark,12.
20. 0 Estadode Sao Paulo, 14 Feb. 1977,Arquivo 0 Globo.
21. Such works included Elizabeth Burgos-Debray'sMe llamoRigoberta
Menchu(London:
Verso, 1983; Sao Paulo: 1984), about the life of a Guatemalan Indian peasant. Rigoberta
Menchu laterwon the 1992Nobel Peace Prize forher storyof lifeas a miner'swife,written
withMoema Viezzer,Se Me DeixamFalar(Mexico City:Siglo Veintiuno,1982;Sao Paulo: 1982).
JoseCarlos Sebe Bom MeihynotesthatCarolina'sdiarybecame famousfordifferent
reasonsin
Brazil and beyond. Nationally,it addressed the currentconcernabout questions of urban
reform,poverty,the migrationof Northeasterners
to the South,and relatedissues. For internationalreaders,the diary offereddramaticevidence of the dangers of underdevelopment.
22. For a theoreticaldiscussion of the interventionist
aspect of those editingtestimonies
by unletteredor lower-classsubjects,see Claudia Salazar, "A Third World Woman's Text:
Between the Politics of Criticismand Cultural Politics," in Women'sWords:The Feminist
Practiceof Oral History,edited by Sherna Berger Gluck and Daphne Patai (New York:
Routledge,1991),93-106,esp. 98-99.
60
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
tionof herbook, even ifshe were treatedlike a curiosityby her publishers,
promised Carolina financial rewards beyond her wildest dreams. Her
contractwith Editora Francisco Alves guaranteed her 10 percentof the
proceeds fromthe sale of each book, withan additional 5 percentallotted
to Audalio Dantas.23Her royaltiesforQuartode Despejo during the first
threemonthsof sales ran as high as sixtydollars a day. Four monthsafter
its publication,she and her threechildrenmoved out of Caninde with
theirbelongings:a table,two beds and a mattress,a bookshelf,a wooden
mortar,and six pots. As they were leaving, the favela neighbors surrounded the truckand jeered at Carolina. One man screamed at her that
she was a "black whore" who had gottenrich by writingabout faveladas but had refused to share any of her money with her neighbors.
Rocks were thrownthatgashed one son's face and struckher daughter
on the arm.24
Because of the stipulationin the publishingcontractthatCarolina
sharepay1tients
withDantas and her lack ofproperdocuments,she could
not open a bank account in her own name. A jointaccount was therefore
opened with Dantas into which publisherpaymentswere deposited. He
made a down paymentforCarolina on a small brickhouse in the stable
working-classneighborhoodof Imirim(562 Rua Benta Pereira,Santana)
on a nice tree-linedstreet.Althoughsome membersof the press scorned
herhouse as a barraco(hovel), to her it was a palace: it had a modest-sized
runningwater,and a
living room,a kitchenwith a gas stove, electricity,
small garden. Dantas had no idea when he made the down paymentthat
the house mightstillbe inhabited.When the rentedtruckfromthe favela
arrivedat Carolina's brickhouse, theprevious owners,theMonteirofamily,had not yet moved out. Carolina and her childrenmoved in, and for
some days the two familiesshared the house, the childrenplaying together.One reporterdescribed this situationwith amazement,as if such
coexistencebetween favelados and what he termed"normalsimple people" was unnatural:"They are cooking on the same stove,washing their
clothes in the same sink,bathingin the same shower."25
Photographersposed Carolina sittingon a sofa sewing, with her
daughter standing behind her and the boys stretchedout on the floor
reading.Accordingto the accompanyingstory,Vera Eunice, who "never
liked going withoutshoes,' now owned themand mightsomedaybecome
a pianist.26Other newspaper stories claimed that the house had been
23. Notarized contract,Livraria Francisco Alves, 1960 (date illegible on photocopy of
contract),courtesyof Claudio Lacerda and Nelida Pifi6n.
24. David St. Clair,Translator'sPreface,ChildoftheDark,14.
25. "Carolina Mudou de Casa sem PromoverDespejo," Folhada Manha,undated clipping
found in a book autographed by Carolina.
26. Maria de Lourdes Teixeira,"Diario da Fome," Manchete,circa 1960, p. 10. Arquivo
0 Globo.
61
LatinAmericanResearchReview
"given to her by the government,"but thatwas not true.27As it turned
out, Carolina and her familynever felt at home in the house of her
dreams. The neighborsshunned them,and curiosityseekers showed up
at all hours. When the police were called to stop fightsbetween drunks
and passersby, Carolina was blamed. From the day she moved into
her Santana house, Carolina knew that sooner or later she would have
to leave.
Public reactionsto Carolina's sudden fame varied greatly.Some
One wrote,"She lives in a governjournalistsmocked her new notoriety.
ment-financed
house in industrialSanto Andre [Santana],she spends her
days in the city,sometimes at the Fasano tea parlor frequentedby the
elegant people of Avenida Paulista.... Withmascara-paintedeyelashes
and wearing high-heeledshoes, dressed in silk and elegant accessories
fromthebest downtown shops, Carolina, accompanied by her threechildren, strollstwice weekly on Avenida Itapetininga,where Paulistas descended fromthecolonial elitealso walk."28This source continued,"Playing the part of a fashionmodel, the formerlyhumble chroniclerof urban
miseryaddressed GovernorCarvalho Pinto himselfwitha sense of superiority,according to a social columnist.... [D]uring a visit by cultural
figuresto the governor's Campos Elisios palace, she did not take the
initiativeto greethim.Instead,when he went over to her,at theend of the
session, she said to him: 'Ah, were you here?"'129
It may be, however,that this incidentnever happened. Carolina
wroteelsewhereof her visitto the vice governorof Sao Paulo, Porfirioda
Paz, and claimed that when she was there she felt "atonic and disoriented.130The perceptionthatshe had acted arrogantlyin the presenceof
the governorprobablyreflectedher timidityratherthanflippancy.In any
case, Audailio Dantas commented that she became "drunk with success.1131
Yet Carolina's writingand her outlook on lifewere always hopeful,and she never threatenedanyone. Eightyears aftershe burstinto the
spotlight,she was living in povertyagain but maintaininga stubborn
optimism.As she oftensaid, "God does not smile on indolents."32Meancommentingon her
while, the media continuedto judge her relentlessly,
mannersand her clothing.As Carolina observed later,she was expected
to appear in public docilely,accompanied by her daughter Vera in a
starchedwhite dress withribbonsin her hair.This "model" Carolina was
also expected to answer questions sagely in a nonprovocativemanner.
27. See, forexample, "Da Favela para a Fama," 0 Globo,14 Feb. 1977,Arquivo 0 Globo.
28. Tribunade Imprensa(Rio de Janeiro),10 Mar. 1961,Arquivo 0 Globo.
29. Ibid.
30. Casa de Alvenaria,p. 118.
31. Quoted by Neide Ricosti in "Carolina de Jesus,"Manchete,21 Apr. 1973, Arquivo
0 Globo.
32. 0 Globo(Rio de Janeiro),11 Dec. 1969,Arquivo 0 Globo.
62
CAROLINA
_z~
MARIA DE JESUS
*
Illustration1. CarolinaMaria de JesusvisitingthefavelaofCanindi in Sao Paulo after
thepublicationofherdiaryin 1960. (PhotofromthecollectionofAuddlioDantas)
Realizing her place, she was supposed to allow her managersand editors
to plan her appearances and "protect"her fromher crude formerself.
But Carolina refusedto meettheseexpectations.Althoughshe was
politicallyneutraland temperatein hercriticism,
she neverthelessoffended
many educated Braziliansby refusingto conformin her personal behavior.For example,at the heightof themilitarydictatorshipin 1969,she told
one reporterthatshe had read carefullyall the speeches of the President,
General GarrastazuMedici, and was planningto writehim a lettertelling
him to provide governmentfunds to permitslumdwellersto leave their
favelasand go back home. On anotheroccasion, Carolina praised General
ErnestoGeisel by tellinga reporterthat"he is a good man and thepeople
In an atmospherein which radicals on the farleft
like his government."33
were engaged in kidnapping and urban guerrillaactivity,her criticisms
were remarkablymild. Even so, copies of Quartode Despejo were never
sold during the dictatorship-they were not banned outrightbut were
censored by timorouspublishers.34
Always self-confident,
Carolina viewed herselfas a professional
33. 0 Globo(Rio de Janeiro),Arquivo 0 Globo;and Rangel, "Ap6s a Gl6ria," Folhade Sao
Paulo, 29 June1975,Arquivo Folhade Sao Paulo.
34. Claudio Lacerda of Livraria Francisco Alves Editora commented in 1991 that he
doubted whether the dictatorshiphad applied specific pressure to have the book suppressed,pointingout thatnewspapers and the periodical press were much more subjectto
censorshipthanwere book publishers.LetterfromClaudio Lacerda to Diana Aragao, dated
16 Dec. 1991,Rio de Janeiro,provided by Dr. Ivo Barbieri.
63
LatinAmericanResearchReview
writerwho was free fromcensorship.In the spirit of the early 1960s,
heady days for Brazilian political expression, investigativejournalists
were for the firsttime challengingthe systemand demanding broader
rightsforBrazilians,althoughalways within"safe limits."Some of Carolina's advisors (includingAudalio Dantas) urged her to writemore about
social injustice,but she disregardedsuch advice. She insistedinstead on
writingfiction,essays, and anythingthatpopped intoher mind. Carolina
thus refusedto be "handled,' and her sharp tongue and irasciblehabitof
demanding respectand adulation forher unvarnishedselfquicklyalienated her self-appointedadvisors.
Accordingto Carolina, however,she chafed under Dantas's Svengali-likeeffortsto programher life: 'I wanted to appear over theradio, to
sing, to be an actress.I became furiouswith Audalio's controlover me,
rejectingeverything,canceling my projects."35She accused him later of
havingalteredher prose so much in thebooks followingQuartode Despejo
that all of the "pretty"phrases had been taken out. In reality,it is not
known to what degree Dantas changed or embellished her writing.He
exerted two kinds of control over her writing.First,he improved her
prose,althoughhe argued in one interviewthatherworkwas completely
hers and thathe never could have writtenin her untrainedstyle.Second,
he edited out statements,leaving the telltaleellipsis marks.This practice
was most apparent in her second book, Casa de Alvenaria(Brick House),
especially in the section where Carolina discusses Dantas. Even so, he
allowed some of her criticismsto be printed,such as her commentin Casa
de Alvenariathathe "gave the impressionthatI am his slave."
Foreign criticsawarded Carolina more respect than the Brazilian
media, treatingher storyin human terms and praising the author for
exposing social miseries and having the courage to speak out. The New
YorkHerald Tribunecharacterizedher diary as "a haunting chronicleof
hunger ... ., a dramaticdocument of the dispossessed thatboth shocks
and moves the reader."Horizon'sreviewernoted thatthe book contained
'the seldom-toldtruthwhichinspiresin some compassion,in some revulsion, and in othersrevolution."36 Lifemagazine devoted a page to her and
Paris Match ran a longer story.37Novelist Alberto Moravia, in his introduction to the Italian translationof Quartode Despejo,contrastedBrazil's
naturalbeauty with the ugliness revealed in Carolina's diary,calling her
the product of a "caste of pariahs" as damned as the untouchables in
India.38 Cuban writerMario Trejo,in his prologue to the Casa de las
35. Casa de Alvenaria,2.
36. New YorkHerald Tribuneand Horizon commentstaken fromthe book jacket of the
Mentor edition of ChildoftheDark.
37. Penteado, "Carolina,Vftimaou Louca?" Folhade SaioPaulo, 1 Dec. 1976,p. 31.
38. Alberto Moravia, preface to Carolina de Jesus,Quartode Despejo (Milan: Valentino
Bompiani,1962),6-7.
64
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
Americas edition (1965,reprintedin 1989),called Carolina a conscience,
visionary,and the creator of a "subliteraturerising out of the soil of
underdevelopment."39
Quartode Despejo was published in Argentinaunder the titleLa
hambrees amarilla(Hunger Is Yellow). In Japanat least threeeditionswere
published of a heavilyabridged translationby Nobuo Hamaguchi, a professorofPortugueseliteratureat theTokyoUniversityofForeignStudies.40
der
In WestGermany,Quartode Despejowas published in 1962 as Tagebuch
einerBrasilianischen
Armut:Aufzeichnungen
Negerin(Diary ofPoverty:Notes
of a Brazilian Negro Woman) in Hamburg, where it sold well and was
reprintedin 1968.41In 1983 an East Germaneditionwas printed.The total
numberofcopies in Germanmayhave exceededseventythousand,although
littleprofitcould have accrued fromthelow-pricedEast Germanedition.42
In 1975 a documentarywas produced in West Germany about
Carolina, "O Despertarde um Sonho," directedby Gerson Tavares.It was
broadcast in Europe, but over protestsfromthe Brazilian ambassador. In
Brazil the filmwas censored and not allowed to be televised. Carolina
was offereda copy,but she turnedit down, saying, "What am I going to
do with filmcans?143She did accept twenty-five
hundred dollars forthe
filmrights.
Some Brazilians did not know what to make of Carolina's success.
Accordingto criticCarlos Rangel,her diarywas a "kickin the stomachof
theliteraryestablishmentofNew Yorkand Paris, [whichwere] obliged to
accept Quartoas even a greatersuccess than [thenovels of]JorgeAmado."
He added thatCarolina resembledPele, the soccer superstar,in being the
perfectkind of hero fortheNorthAmericans:she came out of nowhereto
Brazilianreaders,in contrast,reactedto Carachieve gloryand fortune.44
olina's diaryin ways consistentwith theirown outlook on lifeor political
39. Mario Trejo,prologue to La favela,casa de desahogo(Havana: Casa de las Americas,
1989),vii.
40. Hamaguchi had been sent a copy of Carolina's book by a Brazilian friendemployed
by IHI-Ishibras,a Japanesefirm.See Karorinano Nikki,3d ed., translatedby Nobuo Hamaguchi (Tokyo: Kawad, 1964). Informationcourtesyof Shigeru Suzuki.
41. Tagebuchwas translatedby JohannesGerold and published by Fischer Biichereiin
Frankfurtand Hamburg. A second versionwas published in Munich by ChristianWegner
and NymphenburgerVerlagsbuchhandlung.
42. The East German publisher was Lamuv Verlag GmBH, who had signed a contract
with the Swiss publisher Liepman AG. Royalties were sent to Liepman in Zurich, with
shares designated forvarious persons, including Catalina de Wulffof Buenos Aires, who
had sold the rightsto Leipman. Giacompol in Sao Paulo, the brokerforall of these book
subcontracts,was to have received90 percentof the royalties,with5 percentof the remaining royaltiesto go to Liepman and de Wulff.It is not clear how much of Giacompol's
royalties,if any, were paid to Carolina or her family.Letter of 26 Mar. 1993 fromJens
Hentsche to the author.
43. Penteado, "Carolina, Vitima ou Louca?" Folha de Sao Paulo, 1 Dec. 1976, p. 31; and
Rangel, "Ap6s a Gl6ria," Folha de Sao Paulo, 29 June1975,Arquivo Folhade Sao Paulo.
44. Rangel, "Ap6s a Gl6ria."
65
LatinAmericanResearchReview
agendas. JanioQuadros, who had been elected mayor of Sao Paulo as a
reformer(and was the presidentof Brazil by the timethe book appeared
in print),had himselfphotographed embracing Carolina. Dom Helder
Camara, the "radical archbishop" of Recife,was quoted in a statement
excerptedforan advertisementas saying, "thereare those who will cry
'communist'when theyface a book such as this."
The responses of several otherreaderswere cited in a forewordto
Casa de Alvenaria.Herculano Pires opined, "Quartois the response of the
favela to the city.No one expected that the favela, sunk in mud, was
preparinga response."Luis Martinsdistancedhimselffromtheauthor:"I
don't know if Quartode Despejois, rigorouslyspeaking,a decent work of
literature,but it is a book thatleaves a mark." Still othersperceived the
work as a manifestothatshould be read by "politicians,administrators,
and candidates forpolitical office."WalmirAyala called Carolina a "person whose viewpoint is still not corrupted."Others accepted the book
without hyperbole or reservation.Finally,Vivaldo Coracy wrote that
and it is not a meredenunciation.It is a
Quarto"is not a workof literature,
document,and, as such, has to be taken seriously."45
At least one memberof high societymet with Carolina at an autograph session: student (later Senator) Eduardo Matarrazo Suplicy also
invited her to his home.46She reportedlyreceived dozens of offersof
marriage.As journalistElias Raide summed up the situation,Brazilians
looked upon Carolina as "a curious animal.147
More traditionalBrazilian voices expressed surprise thatthe povo
(the lower classes) could produce figures-in thiscase, a black womanworthyof attention.Reformismin Brazil prior to the 1960s had been
limitedto projectscarriedout by upper-class volunteersto teach uneducated women (usually fromneitherthe poorest nor the darkestgroups)
how to sew, prepare meals hygienically,or care for their infants.For
example, one such effortin the1930s in Rio de Janeiroand Sao Paulo had
Integralistparty
been led by the "ladies' auxiliary"of the crytpo-fascist
beforeit was banned forpoliticalsubversionin 1938.In the early1950s in
Sao Paulo during the presidencyof GetuilioVargas,GovernorFrancisco
Prestes Maia worked to involve governmentagencies in relieffor the
poor. Throughthe late 1950s in Brazil,charitywas provided eitherby the
Catholic Church or by white upper-class women and was administered
on a small scale in a sanitized,controlledenvironment.Two groups orga45. Statementspublished in forewordto Carolina Maria de Jesus,Casa de Alvenaria:Didrio
de Uma Ex-Favelada(Rio de Janeiro:Livraria FranciscoAlves, 1961).
46. CourtesyofCristinaMehrtens.Suplicy laterbecame a prominentmemberof thelabor
party,the Partido dos Trabalhadores,and in the 1990s attained considerable success in
elections in Sao Paulo.
47. Elias Raide, cited in Penteado, "Carolina,Vitimaou Louca?" Folhade SaioPaulo, 1 Dec.,
1976,p. 31.
66
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
nized by women fromthe Paulista elite,theSociedade Amigos da Cidade
and theaffiliatedSociedade de Amigos de Bairro,worked activelyto help
poor families.But despite these good intentionsand efforts,
as the industrializingcity expanded in every directionbut offeredminimal services
forthe poor and virtuallyno services in the surroundingareas, existing
favelas swelled in size, new ones were spawned, and millions of Brazilians were forcedto live in squalid conditionsin tenementsand jerrybuilt houses like Carolina's.
Most of the Brazilian reporterswho turned to investigativejournalism in the late 1950s to uncover worthystorieshad come out of this
milieu. Moreover,most storiesof this kind enjoyed littlefollow-up:they
tended to be published forthe sensationalistaspects of the subject and
thendropped. Lack ofa longer-standingtraditionofinvestigativejournalism in Brazil may also explain thepatronizingand arm's-lengthtreatment
of women who were discovered like Carolina, and it was worse when
they were black. Even when such women were praised, they were described stereotypicallyand with heavy-handedemphasis on theirphysical appearance. For example,Zulmira Pereirada Silva (who like Carolina
hailed fromMinas Gerais) also attractedattentionfromthe press forher
lifelongwork of uncompensated charity."Mother Zulmira" had spent
mostofhersixty-four
yearsin thecityofGovernadorValadares caringfor
the destitutein her home out of her meager resources. She reportedly
explained, "I cannot leave anyone to die outdoors and be devoured by
vultures."48Yet the stories about Mother Zulmira were short-livedand
to heras
always manifesteda condescendingedge: theyconstantlyreferred
"black and fat,' "thegoodly black woman,' or "theold black woman,"and
the recurringimplication,however faint,was that she must be slightly
peculiar to choose to care forpeople who otherwisewould have died in
the street.49
CAROLINA
S SUCCESS
The published diaryofCarolina Maria de Jesu'sbecame a sensation
probablyless because it revealed secretsor truthsabout slum lifein Brazil
than because it had been writtenby a slumdwellingself-taughtwoman
who refused to play by the rules and demanded the rightto dream of
elevatingherselfand herchildrenon herown terms.Sales surpassed even
those of novelistJorgeAmado untilthe1964 militarycoup. Yetthe diary's
message did not encourage theurban poor to challengethe system.Carolina's main concernswere not race but hungerand the constantstruggle
48. JoseFranco,"Dona Zulmira: Guardiao dos Pobres," 0 Cruzeiro(Rio de Janeiro),9 Dec.
1961,pp. 57-58.
49. Ibid., p. 58.
67
LatinAmericanResearchReview
to findfood forher family.50
Carolina scorned her fellowfavelados,reviling them as she foughtto elevate her own familyfrommisery.Hence
while Quartode Despejo shocked its middle- and upper-class readers,it
did not anger them. Carolina blamed the favelados (whom she called
"human wrecks") fortheirown misfortunes,arguingthattheypreferred
drunken idleness, cursing,and fornicationto working or self-improvement. Although she scolded politicians for their cynicism,she never
advocated abrupt social change. Nor did she dwell in her writingson
problems of racial discrimination.51
Instead, Carolina described her own dreams. She wroteabout one
she had aftera day spent huntingforscrap and carryingit to the junkyard: "I am veryhappy.I sing everymorning.I'm like thebirds who sing
in the morningbecause in themorning,I'm always happy.The firstthing
thatI do is open the window and thinkabout heaven."52
Some days later,she reportedanother: "I dreamtI was an angel.
My dress was billowing and had long pink sleeves. I went fromearthto
heaven. I put stars in my hands and played with them. I talked to the
stars. They put on a show in my honor. They danced around me and
made a luminous path. When I woke up I thought:I'm so poor. I can't
affordto go to a play so God sends me these dreams formy aching soul.
To the God who protectsme, I send my thanks."53
In the United States, Quarto de Despejo was published by E. P.
Duttonin 1962as ChildoftheDark.It had been ably translatedby David St.
Clair, a writerliving in Rio de Janeiro.Criticslauded the book as "immenselydisturbing,"adding theiranalyses of thecauses of theconditions
described by Carolina de Jesu'sto the debate over the ways to combat
hemisphericpovertyin the spiritof the JohnKennedy administration's
new Alliance forProgress.The followingyear,ChildoftheDark appeared
as a Mentor paperback, published by the New American Library,and it
has remained in print,although the trade imprintchanged to Penguin
USA. More than threehundred thousand copies of the Mentor edition
paperback were sold in theUnited States.Fromthissource alone, according to her originalcontract,Carolina and her familyshould have received
more thanone hundredand fiftythousand dollars. No evidence has been
found thatshe received even a small portionof this amount.54
50. See George Reid Andrews, Black and Whitein Sao Paulo (Madison: Universityof
WisconsinPress,1991).Carolina's conservatismand her emphasis on food ratherthan race
may have alienated her fromintellectuals.
51. ChildoftheDark,103.
52. Ibid., 229.
53. Ibid., 105.
54. LetterfromMarvin S. Brown, editor of the New American Library,to Robert M.
Levine,dated 13 Feb. 1992,New York.Brownstatesthatno recordswere kepton thenumber
of hardcoversales. He declined to provide data on sales of the new Penguin USA editionor
on the royaltyarrangementsforChildoftheDark.
68
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
Meanwhile, Carolina became a celebrity:she appeared on radio
and television,gave dozens of interviews,lecturedat universities,went
on a tour of Argentina,Uruguay,and Chile. In Buenos Aires, she was
presentedwith the "Order Caballero del Tornillo."Four monthsafterher
diarywas published,Carolina was honoredby theAcademia da Letrasof
the renowned law facultyof Sao Paulo. She was also named "honorary
citizen' of Sao Paulo and given the key to the city. As she traveled
throughoutBrazil,she constantlysurprisedher audiences by challenging
questionersand making statementsthatwere considered provocative.In
person,Carolina was farmoreradical thanreadersof Quartoexpectedher
to be. For example,when a black man appeared at hertalkin PortoAlegre
to protestracial discrimination,she joined with him,contendingthathe
was right.55She also argued publiclywithpoliticianslike Carlos Lacerda
(the governorof Rio de Janeiro)and Paulista Abreu Sodre. Yet Carolina
also posed alongside politicians frequently,
thus allowing herselfto be
used to furthertheircareers.
Despite Carolina's fame, her subsequent books sold poorly. In
November 1961,less than a year afterQuartode Despejo had sold out its
firstedition,her publisherlaunched Casa de Alvenaria:Dia'riode uma ExFavelada, which was presented in the same diary format.The second
volume covered the monthsafterher departurefromCaninde to a brick
house of her own. AlthoughAudalio Dantas and othersclaimed thatthe
second book was as importantas the first,it sold only threethousand of
the ten thousand printed.ReflectingCarolina's rejectionby her workingclass neighborsin Santana, Casa de Alvenariasounded a much more aggressivetone thanQuartode Despejo.She adopted moreextremelanguage,
which mighthave been acceptable froma white-skinnedradical student
or intellectualbut was intolerablefroma black woman who lacked public
manners. In her second book, Carolina blamed the politicians-even
reformers
who were latersilenced by the militarycoup in 1964,including
Miguel Arraes,Dom Helder Camara, and Leonel Brizola. Consequently
by thetimeof themilitarydictatorshipin themiddle and late 1960s,hardlinersviewed Carolina as having gone frombeing a noveltyto a communist, an advocate of strikeswho quoted President Kennedy.56Literary
critics,fortheirpart,remainedaloof. One simplydismissed her workas a
"failure"in the marketplace,while another called Casa de Alvenariaa
"pastiche"of the miserythatshe had already described.57
Carolina's thirdbook, Prove'rbios
de CarolinaMaria de JesPis
(1969),
was a collectionof homespun homilies such as "Only the strongknow
55. InterviewwithAudalio Dantas by JulianoSpyer,Sao Paulo, July1992.Dantas was like
Carolina in being a lone figurespeaking out against society,and she thereforeempathized
with him.
56. Casa de Alvenaria,135.
57. Rangel, "Ap6s a Gl6ria," Folhade SaioPaulo, 29 June1975,Arquivo Folhade SaioPaulo.
69
LatinAmericanResearchReview
how to overcomethevicissitudesof life."In anotherexample,she averred,
"The greatest spectacle for the poor today is to have enough to eat
at home." The Brazilian press dismissed the book as the work of "Carolina Maria de Jesus, writer from the favela."58Because no publisher
had wanted the manuscript, Carolina had subsidized its publication
sold even fewercopies than Casa, however,
fromher royalties.Proverbios
and brought her no payments at all. She had exhausted her status as
a curiosity,and her financial position suffered (it had continued to
be precarious fromthe day she escaped the favela). No longer a celebrity,Carolina discovered that therewas no marketforher books as literature.
By the timeher last book appeared, Carolina had turnedto a less
prestigiouspublisher.In 1983 Editora Aquila of Sao Paulo broughtout
Pedaqosda Fome (Bits of Hunger), a novel along the lines of a television
soap opera. Her new publisher tried everythingto make the book succeed. The coverfeatureda drawingof a poor young girlholding an infant
(althoughboth appeared to be moreCaucasian thanblack). The introduction was writtenby FinnishwriterEva Vastari,and the volume featured
fourpages of excerptsfromcriticsextollingCarolina and her new book,
ranging fromJorgeAmado to such foreignersas an unnamed Dutton
editorin New York,FrenchcriticRoger Grenier,and Nobuo Hamaguchi,
author of the preface to the Japanese edition. The thesis of Carolina's
or social
novel was simple: personal wealth-not education, refinement,
standing-makes one bourgeois. The novel's characterswere criticized
fortheirManichean view of society.In Carolina's view, therewere two
types of wealthypeople: rural landowners and industrialists.Her urban
male figureswere all vain and malicious, while the rural men who came
to the citywere seduced by it.
Criticsexaminingher writingduringthelate 1960s and early1970s
showed in some cases a grudgingrespectforwhat theyconsideredto be
the improved quality of her grammarand accuracy,although theywere
quick to assume that her daughter Vera had helped her. One reporter
from0 Globostated,"[Flor someone unschooled,the technicalside of her
writingis 'surprising.'She is also . . . erudite,although this manifests
itself[in] a certainmentalconfusion[that]perhaps robs her oftheauthenticityshe showed in the favela."59It is not surprisingthatCarolina made
progress in her writing-she always worked hard to improve herself,
desk encyclopedia,thesaurus,and daily newspapers.
buyinga dictionary,
But few criticswere willingto acknowledge thisprogression.Her discovererDantas commentedlaterthatCarolina "was a person subjectto highs
and lows" and that this patternprobably resulted from "a process of
58. 0 Globo(Rio de Janeiro),11 Dec. 1969,Arquivo 0 Globo.
59. Ibid.
70
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
insanity,or mental overexertion,broughtabout by all of the miseryshe
had been through."60
BLAMING
THE VICTIM
Newspaper reportson the amount of royaltiesreceived by Carolina varied widely.One storyclaimed thatas of10 March 1961,Quartohad
earned Carolina six millioncruzeiros(about thirtythousand dollars at the
beginningof 1961 and twentythousand by the end of that year).61Although she received small paymentsin dollars fromher U.S. publishers
(threehundred dollars in one instance),she was contractuallyprohibited
fromauthorizingforeigntranslations.This righthad been ceded to Editora Paulo de Azevedo, a branchof the powerfulpublishinghouse Francisco Alves. Carolina was supposed to receive10 percentof the sale price
of foreigntranslations,with30 percentof her share earmarkedforAudalio Dantas.62
In 1967 newspapers across Brazil and around the world published
a photograph of Carolina picking up waste paper in the streetsof Sao
Paulo. Perhaps moved by her condition,RobertCrespi, a student,wrote
her on Harvard Universitystationeryin a "mixtureof Portuguese and
Spanish" to ask whetherthe storyof her returnto povertywere true: "I
have just read the Englishtranslationof Quarto.I have neverread a better
book about Brazilianlife.I have heard thatyou are back in thefavela.This
life of hunger and survival is sad; I do not understandwhy you had to
return.I hope thatyou can soon take your childrento a betterplace.... I
don't know how one escapes fromthiskind of life.You may writeto me if
you wish...."163
By 1969 Carolina had accumulated enough resources(presumably
fromroyaltiestricklingin) to move furtheraway fromthehostileSantana
barrenarea down the hill
neighborhoodto Parelheiros,a weather-beaten,
fromwealthyhomes and the site of some of the poorest housing in the
city's suburban zone. Taxes and prices for land were lower there,and
Carolina hoped to find solitude.64The area was characterizedby stark
contrastsbetween rich and poor: fabulous houses of the elite stood adjacentto huts of the poor,which usually sprangup in valleys where the air
was polluted by the heavily industrialized zone known as "the ABC."
While Parelheiroswas a poor neighborhood,it was the closest Carolina
could come to approximatingthe countrysideof her childhood without
entirelyleaving the city of Sao Paulo and its public schools, which her
60. Cited by Penteado, "Carolina,Vftimaou Louca?" Folhade SaioPaulo, 1 Dec. 1976,p. 31.
61. Exchange rate provided by CristinaMehrtens.
62. Notarized contractwith the Livraria Francisco Alves, 1960.
63. 0 Globo,11Dec. 1969,Arquivo 0 Globo.Accordingto thenewspaper article,she did not
replyin order "to avoid furtherscandal."
64. Interviewof Vera Eunice de JesuisLima by JulianoSpyer,1 Mar. 1992,Sao Paulo.
71
LatinAmericanResearchReview
childrenattended by bus. Carolina now spent much of her day alone,
reading the daily paper and cultivatingcorn and other garden crops,
despite her complaints that her gardening effortscost as much as they
yielded.65
When interviewedby a reporter,Carolina said thatshe hoped to
enlarge her property,build a water tank for irrigation,and grow more
food. Accordingto thisjournalist,she was now living on the level of the
"typical poor Brazilian caboclo,"a pejorative term that suggested her
Carolina's threechildrenlived with her
lack of manners and rusticity.66
in the unfinishedhouse, located two hours west of downtown Sao Paulo
by bus. JoaoJose,now twenty-one,worked in a textilefactory;nineteenyear-old Jose Carlos was enrolled in the firstyear of high school and
sold items by the roadside to make money; and sixteen-year-oldVera
was also attendingschool. Carolina's house was built on a modest plot
of land, next to an unpaved road. Visitorswalked on boards over mud
to enter the pumpkin-colored house with green window frames. The
press later reportedthatCarolina called her house the Chacara Corapo
de Jesu's(the "Heart of JesusCottage," a pun on her name), but she denied it.67
ShortlyafterCarolina arrivedin Parelheiros,all her Brazilian royalties stopped. She had so littlemoney that she and her childrenspent
some days collectingpaper and bottles to sell, just as she had done in
Caninde, althoughshe now used partof themoneyearned by scavenging
to buy colas or movie tickets.Carolina soon settledinto a routine.From
timeto time,she deliveredher homegrownavocados, bananas, and manioc to a woman who sold themforher at a local market.She also raised
chickensand pigs. Newspaper reportsclaimed thatCarolina was receiving "small but steady" royaltypayments,but theywere too small to lift
her out of near poverty.While Carolina's familywas living much better
thantheyhad in the favela,thelevel was farbelow what mighthave been
expected for an author whose books were still selling well in several
foreigncountries.68
in 1970but continuedto show audacity
Carolina turnedfifty-seven
in fightingforherselfand her children.That year she wroteto the governor of the interiorstate of Goias, asking him to permither to live among
the Indians thereso thatshe could divide her propertyamong her chil65. 0 Globo,11 Dec. 1969,Arquivo 0 Globo.
66. Ibid.; also Ricosti,"Carolina de Jesu6s,"
Manchete,21 Apr. 1973,Arquivo 0 Globo;and
Jornaldo Brasil,14 Feb. 1977,Arquivo 0 Globo.The termcaboclois generallyused to referto a
person of mixed Indian, Caucasian, and Africanblood, but in this newspaper article,it
clearly implied a black person. It was employed much like Jose Bento Monteiro Lobato's
usage of the term,to connotelaziness and lack of industry.
67. Vera Eunice later denied this report,suggestinginstead thatthe press had invented
the storyabout the name forironiceffect.Informationcourtesyof JulianoSpyer.
68. See Jornaldo Brasil(Rio de Janeiro),11 Dec. 1976,Arquivo 0 Globo.
72
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
dren.The letterwas leaked to thepress,whereit was ridiculed.69News of
Carolina continuedto annoy Brazilians.Aftertheflurryof sensationalism
followingrevelationsthatshe had fallenback into povertysubsided, she
continuedto live in her bare house in Parelheiros.Criticsblamed her for
failingto adjust to the middle-class life her success had made possible,
and reporterswho were sentto writeabout her fromtimeto timeconsistentlyshowed irritationthat this black and female social criticwas still
complaining.No one perceived that it would be understandable that a
formerslumdwellerwould have have ups and downs or difficulty
adjusting to a world thatreviled people like her.Rather,by emphasizing Carolina's eccentricities,
the elitistpress trivializedher importanceand depoliticized her message.
In 1972 Carolina let it be known that she was writingan autobiographyabout her youth,especiallyher familyunder the influenceof her
grandfather.
The new book was to be titled"Brasil para os Brasileiros."
Consistentwith her tendencyto view thingsin an upbeat way,the book
would also containanecdotes and humor.Yet despite thismodest goal of
capturingthe world of her youthin a positive light,her intentionswere
belittled.One articlespurned the projectas "anothereffortby the writer
to reconquerthe fame and fortunethatshe had been unable to handle in
thepast."70The interviewingreporterevidentlyresentedCarolina's reluctance to admit how much money she had earned: "[lIt seems that she
understands that she was tricked, but she is confused about it....
To
admit this publicly would be too strong a blow to her vanity"71Yet
Carolina's quoted response seems more straightforward
than confused:
"I'm not sure how much I got. I am still receivingsome revenue from
France, where Quarto was successful. I earned about fortythousand
cruzeiros"(about seven thousand dollars in early1972). In anotherinterview, she stated thatthe Easternbloc countrieshad paid her nothing.72
Criticscontinuedto denigrateCarolina.For example,Carlos Rangel
belittledeven her perceptionsin a June1975 interview,assertingthatshe
called the "threadofwater" near her "tinyhomestead" a stream(riacho).A
year later, Carolina was interviewedby Neide Ricosti of Manchete,a
nationalfeaturemagazine based in Rio de Janeiro.This journalistemphasized Carolina's personal bad luck and unpleasant appearance: "With
mud-coveredfeet,badly dressed,and disheveled,theex-faveladalamented
thatthe worst thingthathad ever happened to her was to have written
fourbooks." Once again, Carolina was blamed in elitistand racistterms
forwhat had happened to her: "[T]he surprisingsuccess thathad yanked
69. Folha de Sao Paulo, 9 Feb. 1970,Arquivo Folhade Sao Paulo.
70. 0 Globo,24 Oct. 1972,Arquivo 0 Globo.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid. Exchange rate provided by CristinaMehrtens.See also Rangel, "Ap6s a Gl6ria,"
Folha de Sao Paulo, 29 June1975,Arquivo Folhade SaioPaulo.
73
LatinAmericanResearchReview
herout ofmiserywas too heavyfor... an almostprimitiveupbringing."73
Ricosti described the "discomfortand slovenliness" of Carolina's house
on its "tinyplot of land" and the walls covered withyellow photographs,
"showing that time has passed, fading one's illusions as well." Other
details provided included the factthatelectricityhad been hooked up in
1974,and the house containedtwo televisionsets,one owned by her son
who lived withher.But Ricostialso reportedfindingno copies of Quartode
Despejoor Casa deAlvenariain Portuguese,althoughCarolina'sbookshelves
containedcopies of the translationsof her diaryinto otherlanguages.74
The Manchetereporteralso called attentionto Carolina's vanity,
quoting her wistful statementthat she had once purchased beautiful
clothingat the Bela Italia emporium. Carolina herselfmade lightof the
matterby adding with a broad smile that "both the store and I are finished.' She was describedas speakingin a firmvoice in her "old manner,"
making eye contact "frombottomto top" of the person with whom she
was speaking. Ricostiadded, "A bit distrusting,she resiststalkingabout
thepast." Carolina was quoted as saying,"I don't dwell on thosedays....
Things were veryconfused.I didn't understandwhat was happening to
me. I wentto Chile, Argentina,Uruguay ... Friendscome onlywhen one
has money Withpoverty,everyonedisappears."75
Accordingto Ricosti,Carolina claimed thatalthoughthepress had
reportedthat she had earned a lot of money,she actually had received
very little.Carolina attributedher relativelybetterstandard of living in
Parelheirosto the factthatshe had leftthe favela "forthe country.'There
she could "eat vegetables,kill a chicken,make soup." As forwhat made
her happy,she replied thather children"now had clothingto wear." The
Manchetereporterthen quoted Carolina as saying,
IfI had to writeQuartodeDespejonow,I wouldn't.I was veryrude.... Thebook
was a disasterformylife.... I wroteinfluenced
byhatred,hunger,
misery,
in the
harshatmosphere
ofthefavela.I was a kindofwitch.It was hardto livein that
In Brazilthereis no needto havethatkindofplace:thereis so much
atmosphere.
land.I don'tknowhow peoplecarryon there.Peoplewho livein favelastotally
lack culture.A culturedperson-one who doesn'tget drunk,who reads,who
behaves,who doesn'tstealfromemployers-doesn'tlivein favelas.Thisis what
mygrandfather
said,theseweremygrandfather's
words.76
By this point, Carolina had incorporatedinto her own discourse
about herselfand her work the attitudesdemonstratedso oftenby her
critics.This developmentis not surprising.Now in her sixties,Carolina
and her life had been filled with clashing values: pride in herselfbut a
73. Ricosti,"Carolina de Jesus,"Manchete,21 Apr. 1963,Arquivo 0 Globo.
74. Carolina claimed thatshe had boughtcopies of the Brazilianeditionfromtimeto time
in used bookstoresbut thatvisitorshad stolen them fromher house. See Rangel, "Ap6s a
Gl6ria," Folha de Sao Paulo, 29 June1975,Arquivo Folha de Sao Paulo.
75. Ibid.
76. Ibid.
74
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
stubbornunwillingnessto adopt thebehavioralnicetiesrequiredto attain
the thingsshe aspired to; and anger at othermarginalizedindividuals for
theirfailureto controlthemselvesand to elevate themselves.Even after
Carolina withdrewto the isolation of her homestead in Parelheiros,the
patternof elitistand racistattackson her continued,and she appeared to
be growing more and more unwilling to respond in her old feistyway.
The passing of time and the continuedburdens of her lifewere wearing
her out.
One last opportunityarose forCarolina to regain public recognition forher writing.In December 1976,a Sao Paulo publisherbought the
rightsto her firstbook fromEditoraFranciscoAlves, which had fallenon
hard times.The new publishermade arrangementsto issue a new lowcost edition of Quarto de Despejo in the Edibolso series. The repressive
atmosphere of the militaryregime had begun to lift,and publishers
seemed morewillingto take chances on releasingbooks discussingissues
of race and poverty.Carolina was invitedto sign copies at various bookstores and newspaper kiosks on the Viaduto do Cha' (Sao Paulo's main
artery),at the Shopping Center Iguatemi, in frontof the old Matarazzo
building, at the craftmarket at the Prapa da Repuiblica,and in other
prominentplaces. She also autographed books in downtown Rio and
Copacabana, signingeach one carefully:"Withaffection,Carolina Maria
de Jesus,"or "God will guide you." Carolina showed excitementbriefly
about the prospectsof furtherattentionto herbook, which had firstbeen
published sixteenyearsearlier.Some autographsessions were filmedand
broadcast over television,and newspaper reports claimed that a film
would be made by a studio in the United States.
But the caption of the storyin the Folhade Sdo Paulo was terseand
patronizing:"Carolina:Victimor Crazy?" The storyitselfwas even worse.
When reporterRegina Penteado arrivedunannouncedat Carolina'shouse,
she described Carolina's greetingas a "grunt."Penteado noted with evident distastethatwhen Carolina had visitedMontevideo,she had 'shaken
the hand of the Presidentof the Republic,"VfctorHampedo, as if it was
unnaturalfora black favelada to make physicalcontactwith a president.
Readers were also misinformedthattheArgentineshad mocked Carolina
by presentingher with the "Order of the Screwdriver"bearing the inscription 'Only nuts achieve fame" ("Falta um parafuso a menos em
quem alcanpa a fama").
Penteado continuedin thesame vein, "The woman who taughtthe
Argentines[about Brazilianfavelas]and who dreamed about starsmetus
[at Parelheiros]wearing a pink dress covered with dust. Her legs were
covered with ordinarystockings,a clear dark beige, withblue and white
tennisshoes." The reporterconceded thatCarolina's garden plot was well
tended and the ground well swept, 'with the exceptionof one spot covered with a piece of newspaper which apparentlyhad been blown there
75
Review
LatinAmerican
Research
by the wind." The house's main room was described as messy but clean,
with a cementfloor.The bookcase held mostly"veryold" works: Victor
Hugo's LesMiserables,Machado de Assis's QuincasBorba,and Euclydes da
Cunha's Os Sertoes.Was a best-sellingauthor being mocked forreading
literaryclassics? Accordingto the reporter,the books had been supplied
by a used bookdealer.77
The resultingarticle,based on what may have been Carolina's last
interview,argued that Quartode Despejo had achieved great success because of its authenticity:it was a book by "a paper scavengerwho narrated her day-to-daylife in the hell of the Caninde favela" and because
Carolina was thecreationof thepress-not because of Carolina's talentor
insight.According to Penteado, Audalio Dantas, now president of the
Sindicato dos Jornalistasde Sao Paulo, had hinted as much in claiming
thatwhen he originallyarrivedat the Caninde playgroundin April 1958,
Carolina chastisedthemen who were pushing thechildrenofftheswings
"because she saw it was me." Dantas was quoted as saying, "She had
been tryingto get her book published since 1948,"as if to suggest thata
femaleblack slumdwellercould neverhave gottenanythingpublished on
her own.78In fact,Dantas's peers praised him forhavingdone everything
to get Carolina published and forworkingto set up a public commission
to find ways to improve favela conditions.79There is, however,no evidence thatthe commissionever accomplished anything.
According to Penteado's article,Carolina reportedthat priestsin
Parelheiroswere givingher writinglessons. She complained thather son
played the phonographtoo loudly forher to be able to read. The caption
for the photo announced that her "ideas, her complaints,her delirious
head continuethesame as ever."80In reality,Carolina had remainedalert.
Watchingtelevisionand reading the newspaper, she was filled with ire
about thecontinuingdeteriorationof slum conditions,high ratesofinfant
mortality,
pollution,and otherissues of the day. She said thatshe knew
how to writebooks thatwould be commercialsuccesses but refusedto do
so because such books were "pornography."Her son was quoted as saying thatCarolina was neverreallyhappy,but "she nevermade a big thing
about it in her life."81
By 1976two of Carolina's children,Vera and JoseCarlos, had mar77. The dealer was Hernani Ferreira,whom Carolina referredto as her "lawyer."See
Penteado, "Carolina,Vftimaou Louca?" Folha de Sao Paulo, 1 Dec. 1976,p. 31.
78. Ibid. If thisassertionis true,Dantas musthave been referring
to Carolina's storiesand
poems because she did not begin to write her diary until 1955. For Carolina's part, she
claimed in 1975 to have called the Folha de Sio Paulo to send a reporterto cover the playground story.
79. Elias Raide, cited by Penteado, ibid.
80. Photographin Folha de Sao Paulo, 1 Dec. 1976,p. 31.
81. JoseCarlos de Jesus,letterto Folhade SaioPaulo Ilustrada,20 Feb. 1977,Arquivo Folhade
Sao Paulo.
76
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
ried. JoseCarlos and his wife had threechildren.The reporterdescribed
Carolina's four-year-oldgranddaughter,Ligia, as a "light-skinnedlittle
mulata with a runny nose." Late in the several hours of questioning,
Carolina, who had always tried not to express bitternesswhen being
interviewed,lashed out at Audalio Dantas and "all of the Brazilian and
foreignpublishers" involved in her work. She showed the reportera
notebook,saying: "This is my way of gettingback. I have terriblepoems
in which I will seek my vengeance. Here in thisnotebookI have all of my
grief."82Specifically,she told the reporterthatotherswere collectingroyalties thatshould have gone to her,based on her understandingthatshe
would earn mostof themoney,followedby Dantas and Lelio de Castro of
Livraria Francisco Alves.83Carolina claimed thatthe only countriesstill
paying her royaltieswere France and the United States. In response,
Dantas accused her of having spent her money foolishlyand blamed her
for selling her house in Santana and taking an unnecessary loss. He
added thatmuch ofCarolina's moneyhad been squandered on unscrupulous lovers. No one ever attempted to explain publicly that although
Carolina should have received tens of thousands of dollars for sales of
foreigntranslationsalone, she apparentlyreceivedonly a small portion.84
Where did Carolina's money go? No one knows forcertain.She
clearly took a loss on the sale of her brick house when she moved to
Parelheiros. Although she was accused of spending extravagantlyon
clothingwhen she firstbecame a sensation, Carolina had always been
modest and it seems unlikelythatshe squandered all herincome.Audalio
Dantas claimed thatunscrupulous lovers took fromher as theyhad from
the FrenchwriterColette.In fact,her publishersdrove a hard bargain in
forcingher to use her royaltiesfromQuarto de Despejo to pay for the
publicationof her threelaterbooks, none of themcommercialsuccesses.
Audalio Dantas's career took offon a trajectoryparallel to Carolina's in
thebeginning,but while hers soon derailed,his continuedto rise untilhe
82. Penteado, "Carolina,Vitimaou Louca?" Folhade Sao Paulo, 1 Dec. 1976,p. 31.
83. Carolina singled out forblame a Mr. [Ernest]Miller,who had arranged forauthor's
rightsin various countries,and RomiglioJeanCompoff,who had arrangedforsuch rights
in Germanyand Italy (cited by Penteado). Carolina told anotherreporterthatMiller "tooka
good deal of advantage." She also stated thatthe Argentineagent (whom she called Juan
to Compoff.See Jornaldo Brasil,11
Compol) "vanished." Here she may have been referring
Dec. 1976,Arquivo 0 Globo.Audalio Dantas (who according to Penteado asked her not to
publish any names) stated that Miller had volunteered to help Carolina negotiate with
foreignpublishers.Miller spoke several languages, and Dantas vouched forhis integrity.
Accordingto Dantas, thereason forthelack of domesticroyaltieswas thepoor sales of all of
herbooks exceptthefirstone. Apparently,Carolina's Brazilianpublisherdeducted itslosses
on the subsequent books fromthe royaltiesdue forQuarto.
84. Audalio Dantas, quoted in Penteado, "Carolina,Vftimaou Louca?" Folhade Sao Paulo,
1 Dec. 1976,p. 31. In the United States,Dutton's book lines known as Signet,SignetClassic,
Mentor,and otherswere acquired by Penguin Books USA in 1990.
77
LatinAmericanResearchReview
became a nationallyknown figure,thepresidentof his stateassociation of
journalists.
Carolina had no contractsor documentson author'sroyaltiesin her
possession. She claimed in 1966 that she had been promised six million
cruzeirosforrightsto the German translationbut received nothing.She
said thatone of her editorstold her it was 'pointless to give anythingto a
negrowho behaves like you."85Althoughthefirstteneditionsof Quartode
Despejosold out, the eleventhedition of five thousand copies (which appeared in 1982)was stillin printin late1991,a signthepublisherinterpreted
to mean that""thebook's trajectory
has ended." Casa de Avenariahad sold
out yearsbefore,and no recordswere keptofitssales or royaltypayments.
Carolina's publisher,ClauidioLacerda of LivrariaFranciscoAlves Editora,
asserted thatin the 1980s royaltiesfora 1982 editionwere paid regularly
throughthe company'sSao Paulo officeto Carolina's daughter.86
Carolina died of respiratoryfailureon 13 February1977.On having
difficulty
breathing,she had taken a bus to her son JoseCarlos's house
and told her daughter-in-lawJoana that she had come to theirhouse to
die. Carolina and JoseCarlos argued, and when she said she was getting
worse, he refusedto believe her.Carolina died en routeto the local firstaid station.Her childrenhad no money to bury her. Although theyappealed to the press for financialhelp, saying that they were penniless,
none materialized.87Only days beforeher death,Carolina had been talking about visitingthe United States to arrange forthe movie about her
life,believing that she would play herselfin the film.Carolina did not
inventthisnotion.Two weeks beforeher death,the editorof the Edibolso
series told the press that a representativeof her U.S. publisher,E. P.
Dutton,had contactedCarolina to say thattheScarpellifilmcompanyhad
offeredher an advance of fifteenthousand dollars forthe filmrightsto
Quartode Despejo.Edibolso repliedwitha counteroffer
demandinga larger
payment.Carolina received nothingfromany of these negotiations.88
Justas newspaper articlesabout Carolina had always judged her
harshly,the obituariesin the Brazilian press blamed her forhavingfailed
to adjust to success. Accordingto the prevailingview,Carolina had been
unable to establish a beneficialrelationshipwith the "rightpeople" and
was too proud to play by the elite's rules. The Jornaldo Brasilobituary
read in part:
CarolinaMariade Jesus,theauthorof Quarto
deDespejo,
died yesterday.. . , as
pooras shehad beenwhenshebeganto writethediarythatwouldturnintothe
in Brazilofall time.... Herbookroyalties
majorbest-seller
allowedCarolina,in
85. Jornal
do Brasil,6 July1966,Arquivo 0 Globo.
86. LetterfromClaudio Lacerda to Diana Aragao, dated 16 Dec. 1991,Rio de Janeiro,
courtesyof Dr. Ivo Barbieri.
14 Feb. 1977,Arquivo 0 Globo.
87. 0 Globo,
88. 0 Estadode SiaoPaulo,14 Feb. 1977,Arquivo 0 Globo.
78
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
1961,to purchasea brickhouse,a symbol-as she oftenpointedout-of her
Buthersecondbookfailedto attainthe
personalvictory
overhungerand misery.
ofthefirst,
and shebeganto quarrelwithherfriends
and supporters,
popularity
includingthejournalist
AudalioDantas,who had discoveredherscavenging
for
paperon whichto writeherdiary,and who had actedas heragent.
Littlebylittle,
Carolinabegantolosethemoniesthatherbookhadbrought
her.She purchasedeverything
in sight:she visitedthefamous,frequented
the
salons of the rich-but in time she began to irritateher hosts.... Her inabilityto
adjusttosuccesscostherdearly....Forcedtosellherbrickhousefornonpayment
of debts,she relocatedher familyto a ruralshackalong the Parelheiros
road.
Thereshe raisedchickensand pigs and lived in poverty,
refusing,
however,to
It was in thisplace thatshe was
becomea burdenon hernow grownchildren.
foundyesterday,
dead ofan attackofacuteasthma.89
Clearly,Carolina was being held to a higherstandard than other
Brazilians.The obituaryall but blamed her forfailingto transform
herself
into a mannered,docile member of the middle class, even though her
ostracizedher
neighborsin Caninde as well as in Santana had consistently
just as she had looked down on them.The obituaryconcluded, "When
her body was discovered, the mayor of nearby Embu-Guacu offereda
valedictory."Carolina was buried in thepauper's cemeteryofVila Cip6, a
polluted industrialsuburb near Parelheiros,the place she had escaped to
in search of freshair and peace.
ShortlyafterCarolina's death, a Frenchpublisherissued her fifth
book, pieced togetherfrommanuscriptfragmentsshe had given to visiting Frenchreporters.This was her unfinishedprojectthat was to have
been entitled"Brasil para os Brasileiros."It was published in Brazil only
in 1986,under the titleDia'riode Bitita,and receivedlittleattention.In this
work, whose titleinvoked her nickname,Carolina finallyachieved her
dream of writingabout her childhood and the countryside.The work
discusses povertyand racial discriminationbut, like her other writing,
tempersbitternesswitha sunnyoutlook and dryhumor.In one example,
Carolina describedheruncle's disastrousvisitto a photographer'sstudio.
The picture came out black-only his white suit could be seen. He refused to pay,protesting"I'm not as black as this."90The book ends with
Carolina thankingGod forprotectingher,even as a child,and askingonly
thatshe be allowed someday to buy a house and live in peace.
In view of the commercial success of Carolina's firstbook, it is
difficultto believe thatshe should have returnedto povertyso soon after
her meteoricrise to internationalfame.Given thatreporterscontinuedto
beat a path to her door in Parelheirosthroughoutthe 1970s and thatshe
it
continuedto writeand demonstrateacute awareness of her misfortune,
89. AlbertoBuettemuller,
"CarolinaMaria de Jesus:A MorteLonge da Casa de Alvenaria,"
Jornaldo Brasil,14 Feb. 1977,sec. B, p. 5. The statementthatCarolina died "as poor as she had
been" earlieris obviously incorrect.
90. Didriode Bitita(Rio de Janeiro:Nova Fronteira,1986),64.
79
LatinAmericanResearchReview
seems extraordinarythatno one botheredto explore her side, much less
intercedeon herbehalf.Her respiratoryailment,a combinationofemphysema and asthma,was treatable,and she mighthave lived much longer
had she been able to move away fromthepolluted area in which her rude
house stood. But Carolina alienated the respectableby refusingto temper
her opinions, thus embarrassingeveryone who clung to the myththat
Brazilians are a tolerantpeople. Nor did Audalio Dantas remain her
patronforlong: she would not accept the less-than-equalrelationshiphe
sought to impose on her as her agent. But even afterher value as a
curiosityquicklydwindled, Carolina neverasked to be defendedor cared
for-she was too independentforthat.Dantas's explanationthathe could
not deal with Carolina's irascibilityand thatshe soon became tiresomeis
consistentwiththe attitudeof otherjournalistsand intellectualswho also
gave up on her. It may also be that her diary continued to sell strongly
outside of Brazil, where readers sought in her words an expression of
rage at povertyand sufferingthatBrazilianstiredofbecause theyconsidered her attitudessimplisticand self-serving.
Carolina was a productof a
society that toleratesthe most glaring maldistributionof income in the
world, yet she did not lend her voice to calls formassive social change.
She simplywanted to escape frompovertywith her children.
In late 1991,JulianoSpyer,a historystudentat theUniversidade de
Sao Paulo, took a bus to Parelheirosand attemptedto trackdown Carolina's family.There was no mysteryabout her children-it was simply
that no one had asked in years. Vera Eunice de Jesus Lima and her
husband Paulo, a metalworker,live nearby,but no one lives in Carolina's
house except the caretakershiredby Vera to maintainthe garden. While
her mother was still alive, Vera became a teacher in the local public
school. She also studied Englishat nightat theprivate,low-prestigeacademy of Anhembi-Morumbi.Carolina's elder son, Joao Jose,died in 1977,
shortlybeforehis mother.Her second child,JoseCarlos, lives at timesin
Vila Cipo withhis wifeand theirchildrenand at othertimeson thestreet.
An alcohol problem keeps him fromworkingregularly.
What is remarkableabout the saga of Carolina Maria de Jesusis
thatonly fifteenyears afterher death (and thirtysince the unanticipated
success of Quartode Despejo),even socially aware youngerBrazilianshave
no more than a vague recollectionof her saga. Her books disappeared
frombookstoresafterthemilitarycoup in 1964,and it seems unlikelythat
any of themwere assigned as readingin secondaryschools or included in
course readinglistsafterthatyear (a fateshared by most
university-level
women writers in Brazil).91 When asked about Carolina in 1991, one
91. TranslatorDavid St. Clair wrote in 1962 that ChildoftheDark had become "required
reading in sociology classes," but this statementmay have not been meant literally.See St.
Clair,Translator'sPreface,ChildoftheDark,13-14.
80
CAROLINA
MARIA DE JESUS
young femaleanthropologistin Sao Paulo rememberedher as "a favelada
que pirou" (the slumdweller who cracked up) but knew nothingabout
her writing.As has been shown,Brazilian scholarsin generalrejectedthe
idea that Quartode Despejo could have value, preferringto view it as a
poorly writtencollectionof homilies.
The fact that Carolina Maria de Jesu'shas remained far betterknown in France, the United States, and the rest of the world than in
Brazil reflectsthat fact that Brazil's elite and middle class turned their
backs on her because she did not fittheirimage of how a protesterfrom
theslumsshould behave.Nor was Carolina'scase unique. Anotherinstance
was that of the boy actor who played the title role in the film Pixote.
Fernando Ramos da Silva won worldwide acclaim,became impoverished
again, got a second chance with filmsand televisionbut ended up being
killed aftertakingpart in a robbery.Yet anotherexample was Flavio da
Silva, a chronicallyill twelve-year-oldwho lived in a Rio favela. Photographed by Life'sGordon Parks,theboy was broughtto theUnited States
and treatedfortwo years.But once he returnedto Rio, he spent thefunds
provided by Lifereaders and quickly revertedto a marginalexistence.92
As of 1994, the situation in Brazil has not changed much. Poor
black women remain at the bottom of Brazilian society,although one
blackwoman fromtheslums-Benedita da Silva,thedaughterofa washerwoman born in a Rio de Janeirofavela-almost won her race against a
progressivewhite candidate formayorof the city.Unlike Carolina, however, "Bene" da Silva has devoted her life to the political cause of the
marginalized.
Carolina Maria de Jesu's,exhausted by her long personal struggle
and her family'sneeds, neverviewed herselfas a champion forthe rights
of others.She lacked money-management
skillsand any understandingof
what educated Brazilians expected of her.Although portrayedas naive,
Carolina was remarkablefor her acute powers of observation and her
uninhibitedwillingness to express herselfon various topics and occasions. When her diary was published, she described PresidentJuscelino
Kubitschekas 'a wise man living in a golden cage." And when the Foreign Ministryignoredher requestin 1966 to declare her diarypropertyof
the national domain, she responded, "I figuredthatI would be back on
the streetslooking forpaper" but added thatshe never expected to have
to fightforsuch a small honor.93Because Carolina neverfailed to touch a
nerve,she had to be relegatedto obscurityquickly.
Carolina's story illustratesseveral themes running throughBra92. See Gordon Parks, Flavio (New York: W. W. Norton,1978); "Freedom's Fearful Foe:
Poverty,"Life,16 June1961,pp. 86ff;Life,"Flavio's Rescue," 21 July1961,pp. 24-35; and Vicki
ChangedOur Lives(New York:Abbeville,
Goldberg,ThePowerofPhotography:
How Photographs
1991),185-89.
93. Jornaldo Brasil,6 July1966,Arquivo 0 Globo.
81
Review
Research
LatinAmerican
zilian society:the gulf separatingthe very poor fromeveryoneelse, the
uneasiness of contactbetween membersof the lowest classes and others,
and the awkwardness of havingto deal with a rough-hewnblack woman
who insisted on speaking out. In this case, class lines may have posed
more of an obstacle to interactionthanracial lines,but the ways in which
Carolina's blackness was harped on by many of her criticscast lighton
the social expectationin Brazil that in order for a black person to be
accepted,he or she mustconformto whitenorms.Carolina eitherdid not
know how or did not want to conformto such norms and was therefore
dismissed as an embarrassment.
Above all, Quartodo Despejoand Carolina's subsequent books unmasked themythofBrazil as a racial democracy.This mythwas so deeply
embedded in the national mentalitythat any challenge, especially by a
poor black woman fromtheslums,could notbe tolerated.Virtuallyall the
reviewsand commentariesthatwere printedevaded theissues thatCarolina wrote about: poverty,hunger,the fate of blacks and poor women.
One afteranother,reputablecriticsfocused on Carolina herself,painting
heras a curiosityat best or a scold and a nuisance at worst.Carolina's fate
at the hands of the Brazilian establishmenthas been shared by many
prefeministfemale authors on socially controversialsubjects,but what
was unusual was the lack even of grudging acknowledgementof her
significanceand her message by criticsof any ideological stripe.It was as
ifBrazilianacademics, journalists,writers,and politiciansclosed ranksto
stifleher pointed truthsabout the lack of racial democracyin the country
and the contemptfeltforthe underclass,especially its black and women
members.Never did reviews of her work or commentariesabout her life
criticize the system that had produced misery for her and her fellow
favelados.Thus fornearlytwo decades, criticspatronizedCarolina forher
mannerbut refusedto recognizeher importanceas one of the few public
voices ever to emerge fromBrazil's agitated but silentunderclass.
WORKS
CITED
ANDREWS, GEORGE REID
1991
Blackand Whitein Sao Paulo. Madison: Universityof WisconsinPress.
GOLDBERG, VICKI
1991
ChangedOur Lives.New York:Abbeville.
How Photographs
ThePowerofPhotography:
JESUS, CAROLINA MARIA DE
1961
Rio de Janeiro:LivrariaFranciscoAlves.
Casa deAlvenaria:Didriode umaEx-Favelada.
MORAVIA, ALBERTO
1962
Prefaceto the Italian translation.Quartode Despejo.Milan: ValentinoBompiani.
PARKS, GORDON
1961
1961
1978
'Freedom's FearfulFoe: Poverty.'Life,16 June1961,pp. 86ff.
"Flavio's Rescue.' Life,21 July1961,pp. 24-35.
Flavio.New York:W. W. Norton.
PERLMAN, JANICE E.
1976
82
Berkeleyand
TheMythofMarginality:UrbanPovertyand Politicsin Rio de Janeiro.
Los Angeles: Universityof CaliforniaPress.
CAROLINA
MARIA
DE JESUS
PISA, CELIA
1982
Introductionto the Frenchtranslation.Le De'potoir.
Paris: A.-M. Metaillie.
RAMSDELL, LEA
1990
"National Housing Policy and the Favela in Brazil." In The PoliticalEconomyof
Brazil:PublicPracticesin an Era ofTransition,
edited by Lawrence S. Graham and
RobertH. Wilson,164-85. Austin: Universityof Texas Press.
SALAZAR, CLAUDIA
1991
"A Third World Woman's Text: Between the Politics of Criticismand Cultural
Politics."In Women'sWords:TheFeministPracticeofOral History,edited by Sherna
BergerGluck and Daphne Patai, 93-106. New York:Routledge.
ST. CLAIR, DAVID
1962
Translator'sPreface.Childof theDark: The Diary of CarolinaMaria de Jesus.New
York:Mentor.
TREJO, MARIO
1989
Prologue. La favela,casa de desahogo.Havana: Casa de las Americas.
83