Brazil in Numbers
A Sign of the Times - Fabian Federl
The Icon: Marta Vieira da Silva - Aydano André Motta

Order and Progress? - Jon Lee Anderson
Jon Lee Anderson, one of America's foremost reporters and a leading expert on Latin America, attempts to answer the question the whole world has asked since the election of Jair Bolsonaro: how was this possible?

Funk, Pride and Prejudice - Alberto Riva
Coarse, over the top and foul-mouthed but also pioneering, liberating and feminist, Brazil's funkeiras are turning the tables on a patriarchal society and fighting against the stereotype of white middle-class beauty.

Prime Time - Alex Cuadros
For decades Rede Globo's programming has determined Brazilians' evening routine: the news, followed by a telenovela and a football match. While its direct influence on politics has waned since the days when its founder Roberto Marinho decided whether a government would stand or fall, it still holds considerable sway.

Prosperity Now: The Rise of the Evangelicals - Anna Virginia Balloussier
Brazil is seeing a boom in conversions to the neo-Pentecostal movement and in particular to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, which preaches prosperity theology: pay up and have faith.

In Defence of Fragmentation - Michel Laub
How can we define the indefinable? Is it possible to pin a single label on a country so multi-faceted that it appears almost schizophrenic?

The Road - Stephanie Nolen
Highway BR-163 cuts a brutal path through Brazil's conflicting ambitions of transforming itself into an economic powerhouse while preserving the Amazon. Stephanie Nolen travelled two thousand kilometres along the dusty, dangerous corridor and found a range of ways that the forest could work for everyone.

Real Life on the Passarela do Samba - Aydano André Motta
After decades of toeing the line, samba schools are now engaging with the socio-political issues at the heart of the contemporary debate.

The War - Bruno Paes Manso and Camila Nunes Dias
Two factions - the Primeiro Comando da Capital and the Comando Vermelho - are vying for control of the drug market, the prisons and the favelas in an all-out battle for supremacy.

You've Got Mail! - Fabian Federl
There was a time when Rocinha, Rio's largest favela, had no addresses, but then Eliane Ramos drew the first map of the area before starting a postal delivery service.

'On the River, I Was King' - Eliane Brum
The construction of the Belo Monte Dam meant those living happily on the banks of the Xingu River had to be relocated to the outskirts of Altamira, one of Brazil's most violent cities. Now they live behind barred windows surrounded by gun violence, forced to buy food with money they never used to have and for which they never before felt the need. Their situation is dire, but the fight back has begun.

Tales from Another Brazil - Valerio Millefoglie
An Author Recommends - Luiz Ruffato
The Playlist - Alberto Riva
Further Reading