A Life Story from Brasil

• Softcover
• 160 pages
• translated by Michael Kegler

978-3-86638-438-5

20.00 €           

Following her two highly acclaimed books »Once Upon A Time in Brazil« and »Let’s Talk About Democracy«, Paula Macedo Weiß presents a collaborative work:

Together with Aurea Pereira Steberl (pictured above by Dominik Mentzos on the right), she tells her life story between poverty and lack of opportunities in Brazil and integration in Germany. This journey by Aurea Pereira Steberl and Paula Macedo Weiß was an invitation to self-reflection, an opportunity to re-define oneself and to painful learning: It was not about claiming neutrality or even truth. The book is the result of Aurea Pereira Steberl’s storytelling and Paula Macedo Weiß’ writing. Thus, based on a true story, this book is the sum of the two authors’ different perspectives and life situations—a shared fiction and a shared dream.

The young Aurea had realised that as a black woman at home in Brazil she would not be able to escape the miserable circle of poverty and lack of education, missing opportunities and systemic discrimination—she ventured to move to Germany. Given her precarious starting point, this alone is a gigantic, almost unimaginably courageous step. And what follows is a series of brave perseverance, courageous self-assertion and tirelessly repeated demands for basic human rights. 

In this constellation, Paula Macedo Weiß once again acts as an ambassador for Brazil and its people, building bridges of understanding between Europe and South America, once again pleading for dialogue and a balance between social extremes. And Aurea Pereira Steberl gives us insights into a biography full of hope and encouragement in the certainty that we can—and must—shape our lives!

14 Essays

• Softcover
• with flaps
• several fotos by
• Barbara Klemm, Dominik Mentzos,
• Paul Fusco and others

978-3-86638-309-8

18.00 €           

The 14 essays appeared for a year as a monthly column on www.revistapessoa.com under the title »democracia em movimento«, in German »Demokratie in Bewegung« (Democracy as Movement), and was also published as a book in Brazil parallel to our translation.

Embedded in her personal experiences, which are the subject of her first book »Once upon a time in Brazil« (for the book see below), Paula Macedo Weiß has now written and spoken about various aspects of democracy – multiperspectively, interdisciplinarily and in dialogue with different people from science, politics and art. In doing so, she has adhered less to a classic interview format, but rather chosen the form of the chronicle from the Latin American tradition.

In the background is the fatally illiberal understanding of democracy of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, but also the phenomena of the pandemic as well as the development of the »Netzwerk Paulskirche – Demokratie im Kommen« (Network Paulus Church – Democracy on its Way) in Frankfurt am Main, whose co-founder is Paula Macedo Weiß: »The network wants to take the anniversary of the Paulskirche Assembly of 1848 as an occasion to strengthen democracy as a concrete form of life and to expand it with a view to the new global challenges« – and this is also the aim of the present volume of essays. Or, as the volume puts it, »Culture and memory are fundamental to understanding social cohesion, to building individual and collective identity, as well as to shaping a just and equal society.«

Featured in the volume as interviewees and references are:

Mirjam Wenzel
Nicole Deitelhoff
Barbara Klemm
Ferdinand Kirchhof
Rainer Forst
Dominik Mentzos
and many others – stay curious!

Story of a Childhood and Youth

• 224 pages
• Hardcover with ribbon
• with a glossary
• also available as an eBook 978-3-86638-289-3

978-3-86638-288-6

20.00 €           

Embedded in very personal memoirs, Paula Macedo Weiß tells the reader about growing up in Brazil under the military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985. This book is written not from the perspective of the immediate sufferers, but as the daughter of a politically aware and committed middle class, which tries to hold on to democratic values.

In 1962, her grandfather had been elected to the national parliament in Brasília; two years later, the military staged a coup. Her father also entered politics, for the only opposition party tolerated among the military, MDB. The "leaden period" in Brazil coincides with the rise of pop and countercultures around the world. The "naive" gaze of the child until the emerging end of the dictatorship passes into that of the young adult under the auspices of re-democratization, the campaigns for direct elections and the wild 1980s in Brazil.

Passages of political classification alternate with private observations, the many exciting backgrounds make the autobiography worth reading for readers in Brazil, where the book was published in 2019, but also just as well in Germany, in South America and in Europe.

The book was translated from the Brazilian-Portuguese by Michael Kegler – HERE you can find a reading sample.

Paula Mecado Weiß has also put together a soundtrack to the book – its atmosphere and its stories, which you can find HERE on Spotify.

The cover-illustration is from Camilla Macedo.