Imagine this: It’s 1910, and you’re strolling through an international medical conference in Europe. The legacies of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch are being celebrated for discovering that tiny microbes—not “bad air”—cause diseases. Revolutionary! Groundbreaking! The audience applauds these European geniuses who saved humanity! And then, from the back of the room, a Brazilian doctor stands up: “Excuse me, but …
‘It’s a weird feeling, isn’t it? Feeling relief at a death certificate.’ This must be one of the most powerful phrases in the Brazilian film ‘I’m Still Here’, which everyone seems to be talking about lately – and rightly so. The film tells the story of Eunice Paiva, whose husband, the left-wing politician Rubens Paiva, was arbitrarily arrested during the …
What if I told you the most expensive artwork ever created by a Brazilian artist is about… cannibalism? Yep, you heard that right—cannibalism. But don’t worry, it’s all metaphorical. Nobody’s getting eaten here—except maybe outdated ideas about art. This is Abaporu, sometimes called the “Brazilian Mona Lisa.” But let’s be honest—it looks nothing like the Mona Lisa. There’s no mysterious …
Have you ever heard of Anita Garibaldi, the Brazilian revolutionary fighter called the ‘heroine of two worlds’; or Clarice Lispector, the modernist author who was born in Ukraine and raised in Brazil, and who wrote some of the most haunting novels you will ever read…? Well, after the fantastic response to my first text about remarkable Brazilian women, I couldn’t …
Have you ever heard of Dandara, the Afro-Brazilian warrior who was a leader in the fight against slavery? Or of Maria Quitéria, the ‘Brazilian Joan of Arc’? If you haven’t, you’re not alone. Like her, so many incredible women in Brazilian history have been erased from the historical narrative for centuries, whether they were soldiers, artists, or writers. Luckily, that …
