A COSMOPOLITAN LAWYER: JUST SOME READINGS I HAVE ENJOYED LATELY

First, this blog replaces my previous blog, thecosmoplitanlawyerblogspot.com . Second, unlike that earlier blog, the present one is primarily meant as a record of my readings. It is not meant to suggest that others will be or should be interested in what I read. And third, in a sense, it is a public diary of one who is an alien in his own American culture. A person who feels at home just about anywhere, except in his birthplace . . . America.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

A PERSPECTIVE ON POVERTY IN BRAZIL

Carolina Maria de Jesus, Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus, translated from the Portuguese by David St. Clair, with an Afterword by Robert M. Levine (New York: Signet Classics, 2003) (From the "Translator's Preface": "'July 15, 1955. The birthday of my daughter Vera Eunice. I wanted to buy a pair of shoes for her, but the price of food keeps us from realizing our desires. Actually we are slaves to the cost of living. I found a pair of shoes in the garbage, washed them, and patched them for her to wear.' Thus begins this book, the diary of a simple uneducated slum Negress that has been called by critics 'possibly one of the best books to come from a Brazilian in this [the twentieth] century.'" Id. at v.).