Books: Crime & Violence in Brazil

The Brazilian Sound

City Of Walls: Crime, Segregation
And Citizenship In São Paulo (paperback)

City Of Walls: Crime, Segregation
And Citizenship In São Paulo (hardback)
by Teresa Pires Do Rio Caldeira
 

A Death in Brazil: A Book Of Omissions
by Peter Robb

The death of the title refers to a recent event, but Times Literary Supplement writer Robb gets his mysterious subtitle most directly from Machado de Assis, a 19th-century Brazilian novelist considered at length for his ability to weave discussion of the nation's racial and economic disparities into his wildly popular serial fictions for women's magazines. The term's origins, however, are biblical; First and Second Chronicles were called "Omissions" because they contained information left out of the preceding Books of Kings. Although Robb tries to fill in some of the gaps in recent Brazilian history, he doesn't so much uncover new data on the spectacularly corrupt 1990-1992 presidency of Fernando Collor as pull together some of the many disparate sources. Collor's rise and fall, and the murder of his chief henchman, form a solid backbone for the book, but one from which Robb frequently wanders to ruminate on centuries of Brazilian history filled with eroticism and violent upheaval. He also recounts his own travels through modern Brazil, devoting as much attention to the sensual delights of buchada de bode (stuffed goat's stomach) as he does to a threatening encounter with the military police. The overall result is a bit of a jumble, but it's a delightful jumble: a Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil with a Latin beat. At various points, Robb compares the unfolding Collor scandal to the soap opera staples of Brazilian television, and he's managed to capture the story's lurid surrealism with a deft, erudite touch. --Publishers Weekly

Death Without Weeping:
The Violence Of Everyday Life In Brazil
by Nancy Schepre-Hughes

This book by an anthropology professor from Berkeley, formerly a Peace Corps volunteer in northeast Brazil, is simply breathtaking. Its controversial theme -- that mother love as conventionally understood is a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as poor women in Brazil cannot, that their infants will live -- is, in the best sense, illuminated by deconstructionist and feminist thought. The author's understanding of these lives on the edge is at times sympathetic, passionate, and sophisticated. But what makes the book as exciting to read as a good novel is her long-term interaction with a group of people that she clearly loves and the complete lack of the sense of the "other" that is so often found in anthropological writing. This work should have as much influence on studies of the relationship of women and children as did Margaret Mead's Growing Up in Samoa (1936) on the shaping of adolescence or Oscar Lewis's The Children of Sanchez (1961) on the cultural effects of poverty. Highly recommended.--Library Journal
 

Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class,
Violence, And Sexuality In A Rio Shantytown
by Donna M. Goldstein

Rio Drug Gangs Forge A Fragile Security
(Drug Economies of the Americas: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
An article from: NACLA Report on the Americas [HTML]
by Robert Neuwirth (Digital - September 1, 2002)
 

At Home In The Street:
Street Children Of Northeast Brazil
by Tobias Hecht
 

The Bandit King: Lampião Of Brazil
by Billy Jaynes Chandler
More About The Bandit King: Lampiao
 

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