| Description: |
|
Product Description
This volume tells the story of the forced migration of the Brazilian peasants and their struggle to survive in the face of joblessness and extreme poverty. In a series of photographs Salgado shows the efforts of the peasants to reclaim the arable land they see as their natural heritage and recounts how this fight has often resulted in bloodshed. He was present at a farm in the state of Para on 17 April 1996 when 19 peasants were massacred by soldiers during a demonstration. His empathy and understanding of the victims' plight and of human nature unbowed in the face of terrible adversity shines forth in these photographs, which are introduced by the Portuguese writer Jose Saramago and accompanied by poems by the Brazilian composer and popular singer Chico Buarque de Hollanda.
Amazon.com Review
"Because death belongs to all, so too should life," observes Portuguese writer José Saramago in a preface to this remarkable volume of black-and-white images. But death is easy and life is hard in Sebastião Salgado's native Brazil, where exploitation of labor and mechanization of agriculture have combined to paint a bleak future for the country's rural population. Even the faces of small children are clouded with despair in this book, which is at once a testament to human courage and a powerful argument for agrarian reform--a long-promised and long-delayed reform that has led to a bloody struggle to take possession of unused land in private hands.
|
