Testimony

In the year of Darcy Ribeiro's centenary, Testemunho composes a rich autobiographical mosaic of one of Brazil's most important thinkers.

Ethnologist, anthropologist, novelist, educator, politician, thinker, and interpreter of Brazil and Latin America—it's impossible to pin Darcy Ribeiro down to a single dimension. He was one of the most multifaceted intellectuals of his time.

All the milestones of his career are represented here: life among indigenous people, his intellectual production, the creation of UnB, his political activism, his exile and his Latin American journey, his return to Brazil and public life, his fight against cancer, and his great loves.

This edition, which combines texts from the latest edition of Testemunho and the collection América Latina Nação , is a review of this rich life, written by Darcy himself, based on testimonies transcribed especially for this book and fragments of texts he wrote over the years. It's essential reading on the centenary of this remarkable Brazilian's birth.

Rosiska Darcy de Oliveira, in the book's blurb, recounts that Darcy constructed "a Brazilian perspective on our country, 'the most beautiful province on Earth.'" Upon receiving his honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne, "he thanked the award as consolation for his many failures and, when enumerating them, said they were his only source of pride: he wanted to save a people on the brink of extinction, educate all Brazilian children, overcome poverty, and create a university in the still-wild territory where he helped establish Brasília."