Diane Grosklaus Whitty | Granta

Diane Grosklaus Whitty

Diane Grosklaus Whitty is a translator of Brazilian Portuguese, specialized in the fields of the social sciences, history, and public health. Her major book translations include The Sanitation of Brazil by Gilberto Hochman, The Devil and the Land of the Holy Cross by Laura de Mello e Souza, and Zika: From the Brazilian Backlands to Global Threat by Debora Diniz. She has also translated prose and poetry by Adriana Lisboa, Marina Colasanti, and Mário Quintana, among others. Her translations have appeared in The Guardian, The Lancet, History Today, and Litro.

Publications

The Collector of Leftover Souls

Eliane Brum

Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty

Welcome to the favela, welcome to the rainforest, welcome to the real Brazil.

This is the Brazil where a factory worker is loyal to his company for decades, only to find out that they knew the product he was making would eventually poison him. This is the Brazil where the mothers of the favela expect their sons to die as victims of the drug trade while still in their teens. This is the Brazil where the women initiated into the old Amazonian tradition of ‘baby-pulling’ deliver babies in their own time, far away from the drugs and scalpels of the modern hospital. In the company of award-winning journalist Eliane Brum, we meet the individuals struggling to stay afloat in a society riven by inequality and violence, and witness the resilience of spirit and commitment to life that makes Brazil one of the most complicated, most exhilarating places on earth.