I'M GOING TO HAVE A LITTLE HOUSE : The Second Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus (Engendering Latin America)

Lincoln, NB: Univ of Nebraska Press, 1997. First American Edition, First Thus . Soft cover. Very Good/None as Issued. Text/Sporadic bracketting to some 7/8 pgs, else clean & bright. Softcover/NF/with trace shelfwear. Memoir, journal. More than half-century past in 1960, Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914 - 1977), African-Brazilian favela (slums) resident of Sao Paulo, published her diary (literally written on scraps of paper), published under the title Quarto de Despejo (Child of the Dark), and soon translated into 14 languages. It was a daily record of a poor, unenployed, black, single-mother of 3, subsiting surviving from scrap paper and other cast-offs of city streets. That book's success allowed Carolina & children to leave a shack and move into a cinder-block house of her dreams. This Carolina's 2nd diary. It covers the 1st year following her rise to fame and fortune. Now she struggles with celebrity, middle-class expectations, and the racial and social tensions her success had brought about. Favela life ill prepares one for middle-class "respectability". Carolina Maria de Jesus died, forgotten and in poverty. The fall back into poverty is as easy as the struggle to escape it is hard. Strong copy despite flaws.