Overview

In the 1980s a poor farmer's son from Recife, Brazil, joined the Brazilian navy and began selling cocaine. After his arrest in Rio de Janeiro he spent the next eight years in prison, where he joined the Comando Vermelho criminal faction and eventually became one of its leaders. Robert Gay tells this young man's dramatic and captivating story in Bruno. In his shockingly candid interviews with Gay, Bruno provides many insights into the criminal world in which he lived: details of day-to-day prison life; the inner workings of the Brazilian drug trade; the structure of criminal factions; and the complexities of the relationships and links between the prisons, drug trade, gangs, police, and favelas. And most stunningly, Bruno's story suggests that Brazilian mismanagement of the prison system directly led to the Comando Vermelho and other criminal factions' expansion into Rio's favelas, where their turf wars and battles with police have terrorized the city for over two decades.

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9780822358411

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Reviews

This particular account is interesting and engaging --Ed Hart Sounds and Colours

Bruno 's virtues are obvious: clear expository writing, an almost unmediated access to the heart and mind of a tough guy, and to an underworld that neatly connects to concerns here in the United States. Robert Gay has become an unavoidable reference for scholars on criminality, violence, and drugs in Latin America. Bruno is another key contribution. --Javier Auyero, author of Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina

It is amazing to read an insider's account of the evolution of the Comando Vermelho. Bruno's structure and themes are similar to those used in Robert Gay's previous book, Lucia. The details of Lucia's life are gripping and unique, but Bruno's life story is more unusual, the events recounted more shocking, and the insights afforded perhaps more valuable. Gay's success is a testament to long, patient research, and to bonds built up over many years. The details of Bruno's life confirm and substantiate the maddeningly speculative picture already held by specialists. Bruno goes beyond confirming this picture, however, revealing new insights. -- Bryan McCann, author of Hard Times in the Marvelous City: From Dictatorship to Democracy in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro Bruno's virtues are obvious: clear expository writing, an almost unmediated access to the heart and mind of a tough guy, and to an underworld that neatly connects to concerns here in the United States. Robert Gay has become an unavoidable reference for scholars on criminality, violence, and drugs in Latin America. Bruno is another key contribution. -- Javier Auyero, author of Patients of the State: The Politics of Waiting in Argentina This particular account is interesting and engaging... -- Ed Hart Sounds and Colours

Author Information

Robert Gay is Professor of Sociology at Connecticut College. He is the author of Lucia: Testimonies of a Brazilian Drug Dealer's Woman and Popular Organization and Democracy in Rio De Janeiro: A Tale of Two Favelas.

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