I'm Going to Have a Little House: The Second Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus

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In August 1960 the publication of Quarto de Despejo (Child of the Dark) created a sensation in Brazil—and in the rest of the world—as it appeared in translations in fourteen languages. That diary of a poor black woman from a favela on the outskirts of São Paulo became the best-selling book in Brazilian history. In it, Carolina Maria de Jesus chronicled her life as an unemployed, single parent of three children, eking out a precarious existence selling scrap paper and other detritus found in the city streets. She ...
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Overview

In August 1960 the publication of Quarto de Despejo (Child of the Dark) created a sensation in Brazil—and in the rest of the world—as it appeared in translations in fourteen languages. That diary of a poor black woman from a favela on the outskirts of São Paulo became the best-selling book in Brazilian history. In it, Carolina Maria de Jesus chronicled her life as an unemployed, single parent of three children, eking out a precarious existence selling scrap paper and other detritus found in the city streets. She described how she wrote at night on the scavenged scraps. Her remarkable diary—angry, proud, wretched, and hopeful—was found and published by an enterprising journalist. The book’s success permitted Carolina to leave her flimsy shack in triumph and move into the cinder-block house of her fantasy. I’m Going to Have a Little House is de Jesus’s second diary. It covers the first year following her rise to fame. In it she recounts her struggles with celebrity, middle-class expectations, and the racial and social tensions her success had exacerbated. This work, never previously translated into English, tells the rest of the story—the grim truth that favela life doesn’t prepare one for middle-class "respectability" and that the fall back into poverty is as easy as the struggle to escape it is difficult. Carolina Maria de Jesus died in 1977, forgotten and in poverty.

"Never before published in English, Carolina's second diary, written in 1960-61, describes her life in the first year after the sudden (and, as it turned out, temporary) fame of Quarto de despejo (see HLAS 25:4741). Translated faithfully into English, evokes the often awkward style adopted by Carolina. Excellent afterword and notes"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
In 1960, de Jesus's first diary, Child of the Dark, was published and almost immediately took on the status of a minor classic. A desperately poor black Brazilian woman living in a squalid favela in Sao Paulo, she had written, on scraps of paper picked up from the gutters, a raw, primitive journal of her life as a street scavenger fighting for survival. A bestseller in Brazil, the diary achieved international acclaim and the U.S. translation is still in print. Her second diary, published in Brazil in 1961, and now translated into English, is, as Levine notes in his useful afterword, very different from its predecessor. Here, as de Jesus is transported from obscurity into the harsh light of celebrity, she is invited to the governor's mansion, besieged for interviews and book signings throughout Brazil. She fulfills her greatest dream when she escapes from her favela shack and moves her family into a cinderblock house. But after the initial thrill of media fame, disappointments plague her. Ill prepared for her abrupt rise, she is bewildered by the constant commotion, harassed by unscrupulous demands for financial help and assailed by guilt when she encounters old friends from the favela. Her second diary, although not as harrowing a tale as her first, is nevertheless a vivid social document, recounting with stark simplicity de Jesus's ascent from misery. Five photos. (Sept.)
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780803275997
  • Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
  • Publication date: 7/28/1997
  • Series: Engendering Latin America Series
  • Pages: 189
  • Product dimensions: 5.33 (w) x 8.02 (h) x 0.63 (d)

Meet the Author

Robert M Levine is a professor of history and Director of Latin American Studies at the University of Miami. He is the author of The Life and Death of Carolina Maria de Jesus. Melvin S. Arrington, Jr. is a professor of modern languages at the University of Mississippi.
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