de Jesus, Carolina Maria ___ 1914-1977 ___ Brazilian ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Carolina Maria de Jesus was born in the state of Minas Gerais, near the border with Sáo Paulo state. Although from a poor family, she started school at the age of seven, thanks to the philanthropy of a local landowner. Although she only received two years of formal education this seems to have been enough to set her apart from the normal experience of poor black girls. She went to Sáo Paulo city where she worked as a domestic servant. But, when she became pregnant with the first of three children, she lost her job, and ended up living in a favela (slum). More or less at the same time, she began writing a diary on scrap paper she found. She accumulated 26 notebooks made from these scraps. A young reporter, Audalio Dantas, stumbled on Carolina and her diary in 1958 and presented some extracts in a local newspaper. In 1960, they were published as 'Quarto de Despejo' ('Child of the Dark') and the book became the most successful in Brazilian publishing history. Since then it has been translated into many languages. Despite the ensuing fame and political pressures, Carolina was not able to or did not wish to transcend her status as a lowly, black woman, or become an activist for underprivileged.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - There’s nothing to eat

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1955-1958 ___ social family

WEB TEXT LINKS
about
google books
a few pages

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
 

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria De Jesus
I'm Going to Have a Little House: The Second Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus
 

May 2005, June 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.