Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus was written by Carolina Maria de Jesus. It includes several pages of photography and an afterword written by Robert M. Levine. David St. Clair is the translator, and Audalio Dantas is the editor. This memoir was first published during 1960 and was published again during 2003 by Signet.
It tells the story of de Jesus's personal account of life in Sao Paulo, which is located in the southeast of Brazil. Specifically, she sheds light on the suffering endured by the poor as they face the hardships of street life.
The New York Times Book Review said "it is both an ugly book and a touchingly beautiful book." Furthermore, the NYT Book Review described tension between protesting the evils of such impoverished living as well as striving for the preservation of compassion and humanity. Despite how beautiful this book is, it was hard for some Goodreads reviewers to get through the repetitive diary entries.
Surprisingly, de Jesus wrote this touching memoir with only a little over two years of grade school education, although she kept reading and writing outside the classroom.
