Description
Book SynopsisThis compilation of Evanira Mendes's biography and translated publications offers for the first time in English an opportunity to revisit the music and culture of 1950s Brazil. Examining the trajectory of the Brazilian Folklore Movement, this book provides a new perspective on contemporary accounts that have overlooked the participation of women scholars from that era and seeks to grant Mendes the recognition she so richly deserves. Growing up on a farm in rural São Paulo State, Evanira Mendes (19292022) exhibited an early love of folklore, cultivated through the stories, songs, and gossip of wandering travelers in exchange for food and shelter. As she got older, she entered the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo to study piano, but her love of folklore persisted, and she was invited to work in the school's folklore archive and later as a folklore researcher for the São Paulo Folklore Commission from 1949 to 1959. There, she won awards including the national Sílvio Romero
