Lucia: Testimonies Of A Brazilian (Voices of Latin American Life) - Hardcover

Gay, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 159213338X ISBN 13: 9781592133383

Publisher: Temple University Press, 2005

Synopsis

"Favelas," or shantytowns, are where cocaine is mainly sold in Rio de Janeiro. There are some six hundred "favelas" in the city, and most of them are controlled by well-organized and heavily armed drug gangs. The struggle for the massive profits from this drug trade has resulted in what are increasingly violent and deadly confrontations between rival drug gangs and a corrupt and brutal police force, that have transformed parts of the city into a war-zone. "Lucia" tells the story of one woman who was once intimately involved with drug gang life in Rio throughout the 1990s. Through a series of conversations with the author, Lucia describes conditions of poverty, violence, and injustice that are simply unimaginable to outsiders. In doing so, she explains why women like her become involved with drugs and gangs, and why this situation is unlikely to change.

About this title

From the Publisher

One woman's story of life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro

From the Inside Flap

"Rio de Janeiro is under siege. The poor communities and the favelas on the hills are submitted to a mix of terror and populism by the drug traffickers. The affluent classes live under fear of organized crime. Most of the police are involved in corruption and lethal violence. Despite this overwhelming presence, life in the favelas is not well known. Robert Gay has written a rigorous, but at the same time compassionate, study of the complex strategies for survival in those surroundings. In this outstanding book we are able to hear, through Lucia, the voice of those brave (and neglected) survivors." —Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, Research Coordinator, Center for the Study of Violence, University of Sao Paulo, and former Secretary of State for Human Rights, Brazil

About this edition

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 159213338X
• ISBN 13: 9781592133383
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240