Eliane Brum's The Collector of Leftover Souls collects profiles and reported pieces that pay close attention to the thoughts, feelings and voices of ordinary Brazilians--and bring to mind Nobel-winner Svetlana Alexievich's work. Despite the country's size and large population, Brum notes in the introduction that "whenever I visit an English-speaking country, I notice Brazil doesn't exist for most of you. Or exists only in the stereotype of Carnival and soccer. Favelas, butts, and violence." Readers will be introduced to a vastly richer country, riddled with contradictions and serious social problems, but also home to inventive, resilient people whose "life is spun from the thread of the extraordinary."
The Collector of Leftover Souls includes short articles Brum wrote in 1999 for her newspaper column "The Life No One Sees." These brief profiles--most only a few pages long--are scattered throughout the collection. They sketch the lives of a poor man struggling to bury his young son; a would-be gaucho who rides a broomstick instead of a horse; a poor, black, disabled woman named Eva who overcomes every obstacle to finish college; and many more. The collection puts particular focus on the victims of so-called progress--the economic modernization that has made Brazil a global player. The stories also showcase Brum's lyricism, perhaps a surprising quality for a reporter.
While Brum does not shy away from the violence and poverty that sometimes overshadow Brazil's reputation, her talent is in profiling and humanizing people who are too often treated as an undifferentiated mass. In the process, she honors their pursuit of joy and justice--their everyday insurrections. --Hank Stephenson, manuscript reader, the Sun magazine