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"This book, written in the aftermath of the 2018 election of the right-wing populist politician Jair Bolsonaro, is a historically-grounded analysis of authoritarianism in Brazil. In the tradition of Zola's J'accuse, Lilia Schwarcz takes up and debunks the popular and cherished national myth of Brazil as a tolerant, open, peaceful, and racially-harmonious society. In that country's history textbooks even Brazil's centuries of slavery have been described as an ultimately benign, paternalistic order in which the races freely mixed and the cruelty of the U.S. slave experience was absent. This, Schwarcz argues, papers over centuries of racially-motivated violence, cruelty, and exploitation. These centuries of slavery under colonial and monarchical rule have left their indelible mark and are at the origins of the structural racism and oppression experienced today by Brazil's black and indigenous peoples. The book outlines the roots of Brazil's contemporary authoritarian oppression of these peoples and paints a vivid portrait of just how dire the situation is at present. Schwarcz's account also details the series of events leading to the 2018 election, demonstrating how Brazil's historical legacy of slavery and inequality, despite an appearance of democracy and tolerance, enabled the defeat of the country's social democratic left and the ascendancy of Bolsonaro's far right political movement. Schwarcz also calls on Brazilian intellectuals to play a role in combatting authoritarian oppression in their country"--
About the author
Lilia Moritz Schwarcz is professor of anthropology at the University of São Paulo and visiting professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton University. Her books include
The Spectacle of Races (Hill and Wang) and
Brazil: A Biography (Picador). Twitter @LiliaSchwarcz Instagram @liliaschwarcz
Eric M. B. Becker, a prolific translator from Portuguese, has been a finalist for the PEN Translation Prize. He is digital director and senior editor at the international literary journal
Words Without Borders.
