Nemesis
One Man and the Battle for Rio
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
An explosive vision of contemporary Brazil’s underbelly by one of our greatest investigative reporters.
This is a book about a man known as Nem; about Rocinha, the slum or “favela” he grew up in and came to run as a private fiefdom; about Rio, the beautiful but damned city that Rocinha exists in; and about the battle for Brazil. Nemesis pans in and out from the arc of Nem’s individual, astonishing trajectory to the wider story of the country that he exists in.
It’s about drugs and gangs and violence and poverty. It’s about a man who made a terribly dangerous and life-altering decision for the best and most understandable of reasons. And it’s about the wider forces at work in a country that is in the world’s spotlight as never before and is set to stay there. Those forces include the evangelical church, bent police and straight police, drug lords, farmers, TV magnates, crusading politicians, and corrupt politicians.
And what they are engaged in is nothing less than the battle for Brazil’s soul.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Investigative journalist Glenny (DarkMarket) provides a grim look at Rio de Janeiro through the life of Ant nio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, known as Nem, who up until his arrest in 2011 was one of Brazil's most-wanted criminals. Nem's path to crime reads like something out of a novel. Prior to 1999, when his infant daughter Eduarda was diagnosed with a serious and rare disease, Nem was a diligent employee of Globus Express, a magazine distribution company. Unable to raise the needed funds for treatment, Nem turns to Lulu, a local gang leader, who agrees to give him the money; the grateful Nem offers to work for Lulu to pay off his debt. This arrangement leads Nem to become a major drug dealer who "exercised immense authority over a community of 100,000 people," and who may even have managed to continue to direct his cartel's operations from behind bars. Glenny interviewed Nem in prison 10 times and is clearly sympathetic to him ("Nem is no paragon, nor is he the devil"), but still manages to offer a balanced look at his subject. He less successfully attempts to connect Nem's story to the broader context of human nature.
