Superb Sentences: Carolina Maria de Jesus

A series of phrases, sentences, and excerpts from Brazilian literature leading up to today:

Brazil’s National Day of the Book.

In honor of this holiday, a snippet from “Quarto de despejo: Diário de uma favelada” (Literally “Junk room: Diary of a woman from the favelas”; translated in the US as “Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus” and in the UK as “Beyond All Pity”), written over several years by Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-1977) and first published in 1960: “Em 1948, quando começaram a demolir as casas térreas para construir os edifícios, nós, os pobres que residíamos nas habitações coletivas, fomos despejados e ficamos residindo debaixo das pontes. É por isso que eu denomino que a favela é o quarto de despejo de uma cidade. Nós, os pobres, somos os trastes velhos.”

In 1948, when they started to demolish the one-story houses to build the buildings, we, the poor who lived in the collective housing, were tossed out and we ended up living under bridges. That’s why I call the favela the junk room of a city. We, the poor, are the old junk.