What Is Mine

In What Is Mine, sociologist José Henrique Bortoluci uses interviews with his father, Didi, to retrace the recent history of Brazil and of his family. From the mid-1960s to the mid-2010s, Didi's work as a truck driver took him away from home for long stretches at a time as he crisscrossed the country and participated in huge infrastructure projects including the Trans-Amazonian Highway, a scheme spearheaded by the military dictatorship of the time, undertaken through brutal deforestation. An observer of history, Didi also recounts the toll his work has taken on his health, from a heart attack in middle age to the cancer that defines his retirement. Bortoluci weaves the history of a nation with that of a man, uncovering parallels between cancer and capitalism – both sustained by expansion, both embodiments of 'the gospel of growth at any cost' – and traces the distance that class has placed between him and his father. Influenced by authors such as Annie Ernaux and Svetlana Alexievich, What Is Mine is a moving, thought-provoking and brilliantly constructed examination of the scars we carry, as people and as countries.



José Henrique Bortoluci was born in Jaú in 1984. He has a BA in International Relations and an MA in Social History from the University of São Paulo, as well as an MA and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan, where he lectured and was a Fulbright fellow. He is a professor of Sociology at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo, where his lectures and research revolve around Brazilian politics, social theory, democracy and social movements.