That program grew out of a peasant uprising in that part of the country, pressing for land reform, better education, decent living conditions, and job opportunities. Eventually he did, however, complete his university studies, and worked in a government-led literacy campaign. Throughout his teenage years, Freire struggled to get an adequate education. Although Freire’s family was middle class, they experienced hardships, including periods of hunger through the Great Depression and the loss of Freire’s father in 1934. At the time, northeast Brazil was semi-feudal: run by a small group of wealthy landowners, and largely populated by extremely impoverished, illiterate peasants. He grew up in the northeastern city of Recife, in the state of Pernambuco, which was Brazil’s poorest region. Paulo Freire, born in 1921, was the son of a police officer. On a visit to Greece, a street vendor once approached Freire holding a copy of the book, asking for his autograph, and telling Freire his work was “very important in my country.” Such scenes were repeated around the world in every country Freire visited. Pedagogy has achieved more global fame than any other book translated from Portuguese. More than a million copies have been sold worldwide since the 1970 English translation. For a book infused with Hegel from cover to cover, and peppered with footnotes invoking Frantz Fanon, Erich Fromm, Karl Marx, and Chairman Mao, it has been surprisingly popular and enduring. The book that made these insights famous, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was published in Portuguese in 1968, and in English in 1970, fifty years ago.

Bell hooks pedagogy of the oppressed