Letters from Brazil Ii

Book excerpt: Letters from Brazil II is a continuation of Letters from Brazil, 2017. Mike Gaherty, now an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, is back in Brazil to continue research and begin the battle for publication in a “publish or perish” academic world. He now has a Brazilian visa as journalist-researcher in his role of writing occasional “Letters” to the New York Times’s international section and is working in liaison with the Department of Research–Western Hemisphere Analysis of the US State Department (INR–WHA). “Letters” will chronicle what he sees and experiences in Brazil – politics, economics, and especially, daily life under the evolving military regime. The Brazilian intelligence agencies, the DOPS and the SNI, are aware of his role and keep constant surveillance on his activities. Life gets complicated as Mike juggles romantic interests both back at home and in Rio de Janeiro. And research evolves to treat the relationship between the folk-popular stories in verse (“literatura de cordel”) and MPB (Brazilian Popular Music), especially regarding the composer, singer, and musician Chico Buarque de Hollanda and his efforts to write and perform in Brazil while battling with the general’s censorship laws under AI-5. There are many surprises for Mike—some pleasurable, a few dangerous. Life for a researching professor turns out to be not as pedestrian as might be expected.