In the book “Quarto de Despejo – Diário de Uma Favelada” (published in English as Child of the Dark), Carolina Maria de Jesus recounts, in poetic and dramatic everyday language, the harsh reality of life as a waste picker living in the former Canindé favela in São Paulo, which at the time had about 50,000 residents.
Published in 1960, her text is considered a milestone in Black women's writing in Brazil and has been translated into more than thirteen languages. Carolina's entries offer a unique perspective on the extremely precarious living conditions of a favela resident in late-1950s Brazil—a narrative previously ignored or simply unknown to the general public, let alone to policymakers.
