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Carolina Maria de Jesus

About

Carolina Maria de Jesus was a Brazilian outskirts memorialist who lived most of her life as a slum-dweller. She is best known for her diary, published in August 1960 as Quarto de Despejo after attracting the attention of a Brazilian journalist, which became a bestseller and won international acclaim. The work remains the only document published in English by a Brazilian slum-dweller of that period. De Jesus spent a significant part of her life in the Canindé favela in North São Paulo, supporting herself and three children as a scrap collector.