Introduction

Djamila Ribeiro holds a degree in Philosophy and a master’s degree in Political Philosophy from the Federal University of São Paulo. She is the curator of the Feminismos Plurais Collection and the author of books on Black feminism, anti-racism, and her own life story. Her works, translated into several languages, have sold over 1 million copies.

Since 2025, she has been a visiting professor in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In previous years, she taught undergraduate and graduate programs at institutions such as New York University (NYU) and the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP).

In 2023, she received the Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law. In earlier years, she was awarded the Prince Claus Award and was recognized by the BBC as one of the 100 most influential women in the world.

She is a lifetime member of Chair No. 28 of the São Paulo Academy of Letters, succeeding Lygia Fagundes Telles, and writes a weekly column for the Ilustrada section of Folha de S. Paulo. She also serves on the boards of the Padre Anchieta Foundation, the São Paulo State Art Gallery (Pinacoteca), and the Endowment Fund of the University of São Paulo (USP).

A daughter of Oxóssi and Iansã, she is the loving mother of Thulane Ribeiro Alves da Silva, her greatest pride.

PROFESSIONAL MEMOIR (2018-2024)

Djamila Ribeiro in Belo Horizonte. Photo: Luciano Vianna/SESC

Introduction

As coordinator of editorial initiatives, Professor Djamila Ribeiro has published works by more than 80 Black Brazilian authors. Her editorial projects are independent endeavors dedicated to amplifying the voices of Black writers — especially women — from Brazil. These initiatives aim to democratize access to knowledge and foster intellectual production from historically marginalized groups.

By opening doors for new authors and circulating their works widely, Djamila has helped transform the Brazilian publishing landscape and inspired similar movements internationally.

Her most recognized initiative in Brazil, the Feminismos Plurais Collection, publishes accessible books on critical topics written by Black authors. With a didactic format, popular language, and affordable prices, the series broke paradigms in the publishing market. Distributed at cultural events and community spaces, the collection became a landmark success, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers and making knowledge once restricted to academic circles widely available.

Lugar de Fala (in English “Where We Stand”) was the first book in the Collection written by Djamila and was launched in November 2017. Since its release, it has consistently appeared on major best-seller lists. In 2018, it ranked second at the Paraty International Literary Festival (FLIP), Brazil’s largest, marking a historic achievement for an independent publishing label. In 2019, it returned to the top ten at FLIP, consolidating its place in Brazilian literature. The book has also topped best-seller lists at numerous literary fairs, including FLICA (Feira do Livro de Cachoeira), FLUP (Feira Literária das Periferias), the Porto Alegre Literary Festival, and FLIPELÔ (Feira do Livro do Pelourinho).

Through Companhia das Letras, Djamila has published three additional books. Quem tem medo do Feminismo Negro? (2018) compiles writings from her long-running column in CartaCapital and has appeared on several best-seller lists. These essays have been widely adopted in educational materials for schools across Brazil, serving as references for anti-racist and feminist debates.

In November 2019, she released Pequeno Manual Antirracista, her most successful book to date. It remained on Veja Magazine’s best-seller list for more than 100 consecutive weeks. The book addresses themes such as contemporary racism, blackness, whiteness, racial violence, culture, desire, and affection, and includes a glossary of Black authors. By February 2021, its extraordinary reception had led to over 500,000 copies sold in Brazil.

Her 2021 book Cartas para minha avó is a collection of letters to her grandmother Antônia, reflecting on childhood, adolescence, and the challenges of adulthood. The book quickly resonated with readers and secured its place on national best-seller lists.

Diálogos Transatlânticos, her fifth book, compiles conversations with Nadia Yala Kisukidi, a professor at the University of Paris 8. First published in France by Éditions Anacaona in 2020, the work is scheduled for release in Brazil by Bazar do Tempo in 2024.

A defining recognition in her career came on September 1, 2022, when Djamila was inaugurated as a member of the Paulista Academy of Letters, succeeding the distinguished writer Lygia Fagundes Telles. The ceremony gathered people from diverse communities and was marked by the sound of drums from her own cultural roots. Welcomed by a reception speech from writer Leandro Karnal, Djamila delivered her historic address as the youngest member among her contemporaries and only the second Black woman in the institution’s history, following the legacy of Ruth Guimarães.

Her books have been adopted in numerous courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Lugar de Fala, for example, registered 657 citations in master’s and doctoral theses in the second half of 2020, according to Google Scholar — a remarkable achievement for an author with undergraduate and master’s degrees from the Federal University of São Paulo. Her works have become essential reading materials in classrooms, debates, and school programs, and are also included in prestigious university entrance exams such as Fuvest and Unicamp. Thousands of readers have lined up for book signings with Djamila at literary fairs across Brazil, in cities including Salvador, Belém, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Fortaleza, Teresina, Rio Branco, Curitiba, Natal, Bonito, Ribeirão Preto, Bauru, among many others.

As of 2024, Djamila Ribeiro has sold more than 800,000 copies in Brazil.

Beyond the books she has authored, Djamila has written more than a dozen prefaces. Among them is the introduction to Mulheres, Raça e Classe by American Black feminist Angela Davis. It was Djamila who first reached out to Davis in 2015, making possible the book’s translation and publication in Brazil the following year. She has also prefaced works by internationally renowned authors such as Grada Kilomba, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison — the first and only Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Djamila has participated in numerous international dialogues with leading thinkers and writers, including Alice Walker, Achille Mbembe, Ruby Bridges, Kalaf Epalanga, Mamadou Ba, Ruth Gilmore, and Oprah Winfrey, among others. In 2022, she moderated a historic lecture by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Carioca Book Fair, held in a packed Maracanãzinho stadium.

Djamila and Chimamanda in Rio de Janeiro. Photo: Bel Acosta

Djamila Ribeiro and Editorial Work

In partnership with Jandaíra Publishing, led by publisher Lizandra Magon, Djamila coordinates the Sueli Carneiro Label. As editor of the label, she published Sueli Carneiro: escritos de uma vida (Sueli Carneiro: Writings of a Life), a tribute to the honored Sueli Carneiro. The launch event at SESC Pompéia gathered admirers, the writer’s family, and key figures from the Brazilian Black movement. The second book published, Ó Paí Prezada: racismo e sexismo tomando bonde nas penitenciárias femininas (Racism and Sexism Taking the Ride in Women’s Prisons), brings Carla Akotirene’s master’s thesis from the Federal University of Bahia.

In November 2020, the third book of the Label was launched: Mulheres Quilombolas (Quilombola Women), coordinated by Selma Dealdina, featuring eighteen women from different quilombola communities in Brazil. This is an unprecedented work in the country’s history, supported by the National Coordination of Articulation of Quilombola Communities (CONAQ). In September 2021, the Label launched its first translation, Black Power, by Tobagonian activist and U.S. resident Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael). The book includes a preface by his son, Bokar Ture, and marked a milestone in the 20th-century civil rights movement, with Ture being the one to coin the term “institutional racism.”

In late 2021, Djamila coordinated the book Uma nova história, feita de histórias: Personalidades negras invisibilizadas da História do Brasil (A New History, Made of Histories: Black Personalities Erased from Brazilian History), which features 16 texts from Black researchers across Brazil rescuing figures who deserve recognition for their contributions to Brazilian history.

In 2022, the label published Educação quilombola: territorialidades, saberes e as lutas por direitos (Quilombola Education: Territorialities, Knowledge, and the Struggles for Rights), which compiles texts from the I National Virtual Conference on Quilombola Education, a partnership between the University of Brasília (UnB) and CONAQ.

In October 2022, the book A resistência negra ao projeto de exclusão racial – Brasil 200 anos (1822–2022) (Black Resistance to the Project of Racial Exclusion – Brazil 200 Years), organized by Prof. Hélio Santos, was released, gathering 18 texts from historical figures in the Black movement such as Kabengele Munanga, Sueli Carneiro, Cida Bento, and Ana Maria Gonçalves, to reflect on Brazil’s bicentennial of independence from a Black perspective. Djamila Ribeiro contributed an article titled A urgente democratização das mídias: Uma abordagem gaspariana (The Urgent Democratization of the Media: A Gasparian Approach).

In 2023, Djamila Ribeiro’s editorial initiative published the translation of Águas de Estuário (Estuary Waters), by Colombian writer Vélia Vidal, which provides an epistolary reflection on life in the Chocó region of Colombia. Djamila and Vélia met at the Hay Festival in Cartagena in 2021, and this work in Portuguese is the first in a movement to translate and publish works by women from the Global South.

In June 2024, she was announced as the coordinator of the Feminismos do Sul Global (Feminisms of the Global South) label, to be published by Record under the prestigious Rosa dos Tempos imprint. The label has already announced the forthcoming release of Feminismo Dalit (Dalit Feminism), written by Indian researchers who discuss the situation of women and their experiences as Dalits in India’s caste system.

Djamila Ribeiro and the Feminismos Plurais Collection

The Feminismos Plurais Collection has become an indispensable collective work for raising awareness in Brazilian society on anti-racist and feminist perspectives. It has revolutionized the national publishing market by opening large-scale space for high-quality non-fiction works by Black authors committed to social engagement.

To date, the collection has published fourteen titles and surpassed the milestone of 500,000 copies sold. The published works include: Lugar de Fala (Place of Speech), Encarceramento em Massa (Mass Incarceration) by Juliana Borges, Empoderamento (Empowerment) by Joice Berth, Racismo Estrutural (Structural Racism) by Silvio Almeida, Interseccionalidade (Intersectionality) by Carla Akotirene, Racismo Recreativo (Racism for Recreation) by Adilson Moreira, Apropriação Cultural (Cultural Appropriation) by Rodney William, Intolerância Religiosa (Religious Intolerance) by Sidnei Barreto, Colorismo (Colorism) by Alessandra Devulsky, Transfeminismo (Transfeminism) by Letícia Nascimento, Trabalho Doméstico (Domestic Labor) by Juliana Teixeira, Discurso de ódio nas redes sociais (Hate Speech on Social Media) by Luiz Valério Trindade, Cotas raciais (Racial Quotas) by Lívia Sant’anna Vaz, and Lesbiandade (Lesbianhood) by Deise Fatumma.

The transformations promoted in Brazil by Djamila Ribeiro’s editorial work have already become the subject of historical reflection. The hundreds of thousands of books sold are not only evidence of the success of the individual works but also a powerful indicator of a broader cultural shift in Brazilian literature. According to research by Regina Dalcastagnè at the University of Brasília, between 1964 and 2014, books by Black authors represented only 10% of publications in large Brazilian publishing houses.

Against this backdrop, the Feminismos Plurais Collection marks a turning point. With Djamila Ribeiro as one of its foremost representatives, the initiative has strengthened the presence of the Black community in the publishing market and has been a decisive factor in the significant increase in works authored by Black writers across the country.

“When Djamila (Ribeiro) cites Audre Lorde or other amazing black authors, whether fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or theater, publishers follow suit,” says Florencia Ferrari, director of Ubu Publishing in an interview with ‘O Globo’.

Djamila Ribeiro and International Work

Djamila Ribeiro’s editorial work — and that of the authors from the Feminismos Plurais Collection — has crossed the Atlantic and established strong roots in Europe. Through partnerships with publishers in France, Italy, and Spain, her coordination has led to the translation and publication of works in multiple languages: in French by Éditions Anacaona (Joice Berth, Adilson Moreira, Rodney William, Alessandra Devulsky, Letícia Nascimento, Deise Fatumma), in Spanish (Juliana Borges), and in Italian by Capovolte Edizioni (Carla Akotirene and Luiz Valério Trindade).

The pandemic temporarily slowed the circulation of these authors abroad, postponing the arrival of Brazilian Black intellectuals in an already vibrant international debate. Still, between 2019 and early 2020, two successful tours took place in France, with all events sold out and Djamila’s works launched at major literary festivals. Her post-pandemic return came in October 2022, with a tour across France, Belgium, and Germany.

In 2022, Djamila attended the International Book Fair in Turin, Italy, where some of her works were launched in Italian by Capovolte. In 2023, she toured the country to celebrate the release of her books in Bologna, Florence, Milan, and Rome.

Beyond publishing, Djamila Ribeiro is a member of the Beauvoir Society, which brings together leading scholars of Simone de Beauvoir’s thought. She has delivered lectures at universities including Oregon, St. Louis, Berkeley, Duke, Harvard, King’s College, and Oxford. In 2018, she lectured at the Angela Davis Chair for Invited Professors at Goethe University in Germany, and in 2019 she was invited as a visiting researcher at Maxcy’s College, University of South Carolina. She is also a visiting researcher at the University of Mainz in Germany. Djamila regularly participates in major international literary events in Frankfurt, Berlin, Edinburgh, Nairobi, Bogotá, and Brussels, and has spoken at UNESCO, the World Bank, and before foreign parliaments.

In 2023, she was a keynote speaker at the UN General Assembly on the Day in Memory of the Abolition of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, where she delivered a lecture on “Fighting the Legacy of Slavery Through Transformative Education.”

In 2024, she was invited as a keynote speaker for the launch of the English edition of Lugar de Fala (Where We Stand), published by Yale University Press. The book features a preface by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and endorsements by Patricia Hill Collins, Ibram X. Kendi, Linda Alcoff, Priyamvada Gopal, and Kia Lilly Caldwell. In the same year, Djamila was also appointed as the new holder of the Andrés Bello Chair for Visiting Professors at New York University.

São Paulo, February 28, 2023 – Published with biographical details, book purchasing links, recent articles, professional schedule, and contact information.

Last update: August 17, 2024.

Djamila Ribeiro’s Press Office