Diary of A North American Researcher in Brazil III

About the Book

“Diary of a North American Researcher in Brazil III” is the last in the series “Stories I Told My Students.” It is the continuation of the author’s love affair and odyssey in Brazil, this time from 1988 to 2005. The volume brings to the present moments lived in Brazil and is written much more in the framework of a travel diary in Brazil. Short vignettes about people and places flavor the book. There is emphasis on academic conferences with many “Brazilian Stories,” the publication of works in Brazil, and more important, times shared with “cordel” poets, professors and researchers of Brazilian literature, folklore and “popular literature in verse.” Something new in this final phase of research, writing and professional life was the time spent in the city of São Paulo, at first glance an unlikely place for a student of folklore. A special moment was the participation in a unique event: “100 Years of Cordel” sponsored by the SESC-POMPEIA in 2001 in that city. Others were with “cordel” poets and poet-singers in the Northeastern Cultural Center in São Paulo, and with Sérgio Miceli of the University of São Paulo Press and Plínio Martins of “Ateliê” Press, dealing with the publication of Curran’s final research efforts in Brazil. And lastly the book recalls fondly the time spent with friends who were with me in moments of happiness but also of solitude and some loneliness. I dedicate the book to all of them: “cordel” poets, researchers, professors, writers, friends, and to the person who sustained me most, my wife Keah.

About the Author

Mark J. Curran is a retired professor from Arizona State University where he worked from 1968 to 2011. He taught Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese Languages and their respective cultures on the Iberian Peninsula and in Latin America. His area of research was Brazilian “Popular Literature in Verse” (“A Literatura de Cordel”) and its relation to Brazilian Literature and History. He has made more than twenty trips to Brazil for research, conferences, and book publishing as well as tourism. Curran has published some twenty-five articles in research journals and now fifteen books in Brazil, Spain and the United States on the “Literatura de Cordel” and Brazilian Culture. In retirement he has done seven books in the series “Stories I told My Students” – books on Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Portugal and Spain, themes based on his teaching years at A.S.U. Two autobiographical books complete the list: “The Farm” and “Coming of Age with the Jesuits.” His most recent activity was as “staff” for Lindblad Expeditions – National Geographic on the National Geographic Explorer from Ushuaia, Argentina, Brazil and on to Madeira Island.