Discover new books on Goodreads

See if your friends have read any of Carolina Maria de Jesus's books

Carolina Maria de Jesus’s Followers (280)

Carolina Maria de Jesus

Born

in Sacramento, Minas Gerais, Brazil

March 14, 1914

Died

February 13, 1977

Website

https://www.vidaporescrito.com/

Genre

Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

edit data

Carolina Maria de Jesus was born on March 14, 1914 in Sacramento-MG, where she lived in her childhood and adolescence. Her parents probably migrated from Desemboque to Sacramento as a result of changing the economics of gold mining to farming activities.

In Sacramento, she attended primary school in a Spiritualist College, which had a mission aimed at poor children of the town, with the help of influential people. Carolina studied just over two years but learned to read and write there. She later remembered reading posters outside movie theaters and realizing that reading was not just something done in school, but a skill that could be used everywhere. All her reading and writing was based on this short time of formal education. She quit sch Carolina Maria de Jesus was born on March 14, 1914 in Sacramento-MG, where she lived in her childhood and adolescence. Her parents probably migrated from Desemboque to Sacramento as a result of changing the economics of gold mining to farming activities.

In Sacramento, she attended primary school in a Spiritualist College, which had a mission aimed at poor children of the town, with the help of influential people. Carolina studied just over two years but learned to read and write there. She later remembered reading posters outside movie theaters and realizing that reading was not just something done in school, but a skill that could be used everywhere. All her reading and writing was based on this short time of formal education. She quit school but never stopped reading and writing.

Moving to São Paulo in 1947, Carolina went to live in the now defunct favela of Canindé, in the northern part of the city. She earned money by collecting recyclable materials. When she found notebooks or blank papers in the trash she saved them for her writing. She wrote novels, plays, letters to authorities and poetry in addition to her ongoing journal.

Even before all the injuries, losses and discrimination she suffered throughout her life, Carolina revealed through her writing the importance of speaking up in honest testimony, as a means of complaint about social inequality and racial prejudice.

Her best known work, Quarto de Despejo (Place of Garbage) – Diário de uma favelada (published in America as Child of the Dark), edited by journalist Audalio Dantas and released in 1960, had an initial print run of 10000 copies, which sold out the first week. More than 55 years since then, the book has already been translated into 13 languages and sold in more than 40 countries. This book is a chronicle of life in the favela do Canindé, at the beginning of the "modernisation" of the city of São Paulo and the emergence in the outskirts. Its cruel and perverse reality was until then little known. This documentary literature, in its unique black female narrative, was known and named as journalism of denunciation of the years 1950-1960. It is still considered a current work, because the theme of problems lasting to this day in the big cities.

The work of Carolina Maria de Jesus is an important reference to the cultural and literary studies, both in Brazil and abroad and represents our peripheral/marginal and Afro-Brazilian literature. An example of strength, intelligence and ability to stay forever in the history of our culture.

Even today, much of Carolina's production remains unheard. The researcher Raffaella Fernandez still is dedicated to the organization of the manuscripts of the author. In a set of more than 5000 pages, are 7 novels, 60 short texts , 100 poems, 4 theatre plays and 12 letters for Carnival marches.

In 2014, as a result of the Projeto Vida por Escrito – Organização, classificação e preparação do inventário do arquivo de Carolina Maria de Jesus, awarded the Prêmio Funarte de Arte Negra, it launched the Biobibliografic Portal of Carolina Maria de Jesus (www.vidaporescrito.com) and, in 2015, released the book Vida por Escrito – Guia do Acervo de Carolina Maria de Jesus, organized by Sergio Barcellos. The project mapped the entire material of the writer who is guarded by several institutions, including: Biblioteca Nacional, Instituto Moreira Salles, Museu Afro Brasil, Arquivo Público Municipal de Sacramento and the Acervo de Escritores Mineiros (UFMG).

...more

Combine Editions
Carolina Maria de Jesus’s books

Average rating: 4.47 · 12,346 ratings · 1,472 reviews · 20 distinct works • Similar authors

	Quarto de Despejo: Diário de uma Favelada 4.49 avg rating — 11,532 ratings — published 1960 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Casa de Alvenaria - Volume 1: Osasco 4.30 avg rating — 179 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Casa de Alvenaria: Diário de Uma Ex-Favelada 4.34 avg rating — 105 ratings — published 1961 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	O escravo by Carolina Maria de Jesus, Denise Carrascosa (Foreword), Fernanda Silva e Sousa (Afterword) 4.01 avg rating — 76 ratings — published 2023 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cuarto de desechos y otras obras by Carolina Maria de Jesus, Laboratorio de Traducción de Unila (Translator), Rafaella Fernandez (Contributor) 4.07 avg rating — 60 ratings — published 1960 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Unedited Diaries of Carolina Maria De Jesus by Carolina Maria de Jesus, Robert M. Levine (Editor), José Carlos Sebe Bom Meihy (Editor) 4.10 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 1998 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Casa de Alvenaria - Volume 2: Santana 4.64 avg rating — 28 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pedaços da Fome 3.92 avg rating — 12 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Onde Estaes Felicidade? 4.10 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Provérbios really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 10 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Carolina Maria de Jesus…

Quotes by Carolina Maria de Jesus (?)

“The book is man's best invention so far.”
― Carolina Maria de Jesus

tags: books

14 likes

“I went to the shoemaker to collect his wastepaper. One of them asked me if my book was communistic. I replied that it was realistic. He cautioned me that it was not wise to write of reality.”
― Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus, 50th Anniversary Edition

12 likes

“Em 1948, quando começaram a demolir as casas térreas para construir os edifícios, nós, os pobres que residíamos nas habitações coletivas, fomos despejados e ficamos residindo debaixo das pontes. É por isso que eu denomino que a favela é o quarto de despejo de uma cidade. Nós, os pobres, somos os trastes velhos.”
― Carolina Maria de Jesus, Quarto de Despejo: Diário de Uma Favelada

8 likes

See all Carolina Maria de Jesus's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Afro Book Club: February 2014 - West/Central Africa; and South America and Caribbean	13	70	Dec 17, 2013 05:56AM
500 Great Books B...: Translated into English	2	577	Aug 01, 2014 02:16PM
500 Great Books B...: Nonfiction Varieties	4	176	Sep 20, 2014 08:07PM
500 Great Books B...: Decades, Centuries, and Millenia	8	413	Dec 06, 2014 09:46PM
500 Great Books B...: Daughters of Africa	1	104	Jul 21, 2015 12:10PM
500 Great Books B...: * Women of Color	4	387	Dec 15, 2015 01:11PM
LITERARY HURRICANE: Mar/2019 * Diário de Bitita * Primeiras impressões / Sem spoilers	1	9	Mar 02, 2019 02:32PM
The Seasonal Read...: Completed Tasks: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE ANY POST IN THIS THREAD	3383	284	Aug 31, 2021 09:00PM

More…