Overview

In the mid-19th century, millions of Africans were enslaved and brought to Brazil. Among them was Tiodora, who worked in the home of a priest in Sao Paulo. She wished to reconstruct the family ties lost during the journey from Africa to Brazil and to achieve emancipation for herself and her family. To buy her freedom, she needed the help of her husband and her son, who were working in the coffee plantations in another area of the city. She asks Claro, another slave, to help her write and send letters. Inspired by this secret correspondence, Tiodora's Letters is a rigorously researched historical work, a compelling narrative based on her letters, and masterfully drawn by D'Salete, who graphically recreates her struggle. There are many wordless passages of danger, daring, and world-building, heartbreaking horror, character beats, breathtaking drawings of nature, and much more. In Tiodora's Letters, D'Salete reconstructs a forgotten part of Brazil's dark history of slavery and pays tribute to the strength of a woman who single-handedly tried to fight for her rights. Includes educational and contextual material.

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9798875001710

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Reviews

D'Salete employs a sharp, almost woodcut-like black and white to recreate the atmosphere of a dusty and spectral São Paulo. Visual silence is a deliberate choice: many pages lack text, allowing the expressions of faces and the tension of bodies to narrate the anguish of separation and the grind of labor on coffee plantations.-- ""RetroFuturista""

Author Information

Brazilian cartoonist Marcelo D'Salete is a graduate of the University of Sao Paulo with a degree in fine arts. He is an acclaimed illustrator, teacher, and historical author who lives in Italy. Andrea Rosenberg is a translator who has worked on a variety of novels and graphic narratives in Spanish and Portuguese. Her translations of the graphic novels Run For It by Marcelo D'Salete and The House by Paco Roca won Eisner Awards in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

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