Child of The Dark

The Diary of Carolina Maria De Jesus

I started reading this book when I was going through some of the worst days I ever had. I failed badly, and I have no idea how to face it. As usual, I needed to read a book to forget about my pain when I can't fall asleep. I didn't choose this book by myself, but a friend gave it to me. So I started reading it, and I loved every word and every feeling no matter how simple they were. 

  If you check the story for Carolina Maria book you will understand that she was a very poor woman, surviving by collecting papers and cans and food from garbage. That's exactly what attracted me the most when I started this book. 

  Her diary is divided into 3 periods:

• 1955: Even though she was suffering to collect some food for her kids, she was full of energy and optimistic for a better future. She was writing and dreaming her work will be published soon and she will get money and leave the shack she was living in. I liked so much that strong will she had. She was fighting life itself to prove she can change it. 

Here are some sentences from this period: 

"I wanted to save the money to buy beans but I couldn't because my stomach was screaming and torturing me" ... " What a surprising effect food has on our organisms. Before I ate, I saw the sky, the trees, and the birds all yellow, but after I ate, everything was normal to my eyes" ... "My body stopped weighing me down. I started to walk faster. I had the feeling that I was gliding in space. I started to smile as if I was witnessing a beautiful play. And will there ever be a drama more beautiful than that of eating?..."

• 1958: She stopped writing her diaries for two years. She was so depressed and she couldn't fight anymore. Sometimes she was talking about suicide, other times she had doubt about her faith in God. I felt so sad for her. Life can really be a horrible misery for some people... But, the truth is no matter how depressed and tired and sick she was, she went back to writing, she thought she gave up, and she can't make it, but I can tell from the most depressed sentences she wrote that inside her she was still fighting to succeed and stop her hunger. 

Here are some sentences from this period: 

"But I don't want to, [marry] because I am in my maturity. And later a man isn't going to like a woman who can't stop reading and gets out of bed to write and sleeps with papers and pencil under her pillow. That's why I prefer to live alone, for my ideals."

"I'd like to see how I'm going to die. Nobody should feed the idea of suicide. But today he who lives till the hour of his death is a hero. Because he who is not strong gives in."

"I believe that one man should be enough for a woman. A woman who marries should act normal" ... " This story of women changing men as if they are changing clothes is disgusting. Today a fee woman, with no obligations, can imitate a pack of cards, passing from hand to hand".

• 1959; It was another hard year for Carolina, full of anger, sadness and hunger. But it also was the year when she started being famous, when the reporter published her story on a magazine, and she was waiting her book to be published. Again, she didn't give up. She was the strongest woman I've ever read about.

Here are some sentences from this period: 

"Today I'm going to buy meat. Nowadays when a poor man eats meat he keeps smiling stupidly" ... "When the poor eat rich food, they torture themselves" ... " Life is just like a book. Only after you've read it you know how it ends. It is when we are at the end of life do we know how our life ran. Mine, until now, has been black. As black as my skin. Black as the garbage dump where I live" ... " My battle of the day was to fix lunch". 

  Her book was published in 1960, and it was really a famous book, and still. She finally could leave that shack, and she had a house, and some proper food for her kids. I read somewhere that her success didn't last for so long because her next books were not as successful as the first, but at least she left that shack as she dreamed, and she taught her kids that they must work so hard and never give up on their dreams to live a better life. 

  Here is Carolina Maria De Jesus 

Read the book, you won't regret it. Enjoy.

                                                                                                   Merry