A Mother′s Cry

“A Mother’s Cry is the story of a Brazilian mother who, while living in the United States in the 1960s, learns by mail of her son’s kidnapping by agents of Brazil’s military regime. Without immediate means to locate her son, there is ‘only’ his grandmother in Brazil to initially confront the dictatorship’s atrocity establishment. The stuff of a great film, A Mother’s Cry juxtaposes their efforts to secure the young man’s release with his strategies for surviving brutalizing physical and potentially spirit-breaking torture. This great book joins the yet unconnected literatures on human agency, big and small, that run from the Holocaust, to Argentina’s mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, to Cambodian survivors of S-21 prison, to recent accounts of CIA rendition victims. This impressive book is must reading.” - Martha K. Huggins, Tulane University

“A family’s chance descent into the indignities of Brazil’s military dictatorship is uncompromisingly recorded in nearly a decade of letters penned across continents; so too is the inextinguishable hope to set free a son, grandson, and brother. Arbitrarily imprisoned, brutally tortured, and subsequently whisked abroad to safety, Marcos P. S. Arruda would then face years of difficult rehabilitation. His is the tale of many a political prisoner; but, fortunate to escape with his life, he has ever since borne witness against the oppression, corruption, and brutality of authoritarian regimes, their supporters, and their protectors the world over.” - Ralph Della Cava, Columbia University

“... this tale of mother and son brings to light a never to be forgotten break in Brazil’s long-standing history of democracy.” - Linda S. Maier, Bulletin of Latin American Research

“A Mother’s Cry should rank among the foremost publications of the testimonial genre and is suitable for a broad, interdisciplinary audience interested in human rights, resistance, and social justice.” - Cathy Marie Ouellette, History

“The military dictatorship in Brazil lasted from 1964 to 1985. Lina Sattamini’s A Mother’s Crysuggests that the memory of dictatorship lasted a lot longer. The book describes the mobilization of a family in their desperate attempt to find Marcos Arruda, a young student who was imprisoned by the military police in 1970. ... In the process of describing how she and her mother managed to free Marcos Arruda, Lina Sattamini unearthed important evidence of the abuses of the institutional pawns of the dictatorial government. But A Mother’s Cry also unearthed something else, an aspect of dictatorial governments which is often glossed over: the strength and power of the opposition to the military.” - Isabel DiVanna, Canadian Journal of History

"An important contribution to the large literature on personal experiences of human rights abuses in Cold War Latin America."  - Andrew Kirkendall, Human Rights Review

“This work provides ample detail of the tortures inflicted by the OBAN secret police…This book is a memorable and highly readable human story and source that has gained a new relevancy since its publication.”  - Philip Evanson, The Americas