Carolina Maria de Jesus, a tall Negro woman with three illegitimate children, each by a different man, lived in a teeming favela (slum) in São Paulo. At dawn she queued up for water at a public spigot, an empty oil can on her head. To buy bread and rice, she scavenged scrap paper, selling it to a junkman and getting as much as 30¢ "on good days." But Carolina's nights, in recent years, were quite untainted by the brawling and raw sex that surrounded her. By kerosene lamp in her 4-ft. by 12-ft....
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