What Is Mine

In�What Is Mine, sociologist Jos� 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.