Carolina Maria de Jesus

Carolina Maria de Jesus is a black woman living in a favela - a ghetto of sorts - in Sao Paulo, Brazil. She has three children and has never been married. She's a complicated person with dreams of escaping the life she lives, both for herself and for her children.

Carolina's days are spent looking for scrap to sell and for cast off food and clothing for her family. While she sometimes takes handouts, she seems to deplore begging. She says that she reserves her kind words for children and "the employed." She says that prostitution is morally wrong, but often has men spend the night with her. She has offers of sex, cohabitation and marriage, but rejects them all, saying she doesn't need a man for her life to be complete.

Through all the hard work and struggle to survive, Carolina writes. She writes...