In this powerful, vibrant biography, award-winning creator Duncan
Tonatiuh sheds light on the legacy of a legendary capoeira player,
Mestre Bimba, who resisted racial oppression through art and turned a
marginalized practice into a global phenomenon
*A meia lua whooshed in the air. The strike was evaded and followed with
an aú.
Two young men were playing capoeira in the middle of the roda. Bimba
wanted to play, too.
*
Although it is debated when and where capoeira--an art form that blends
martial arts, dance, acrobatics, music, and spirituality--originated
exactly, one thing is certain: in the early 20th century, Brazil was the
only country in the world where capoeira was played, and it was mainly
practiced by people of African descent. In 1890, two years after Brazil
officially abolished slavery, the game was outlawed. Wealthy,
lighter-skinned society feared and looked down on capoeira, seeing it as
a game for malandros--what people in power called the poor Black
communities they disdained. But in the early 1920s in the city of
Salvador, a man called Bimba would advocate for capoeira, and those who
practiced it, to be treated with dignity and the respect it deserved.
Duncan Tonatiuh's lyrical prose and beloved illustration style, inspired
by pre-Columbian codices, tell the story of arguably the greatest
capoeirista of all time, who fought to turn a misunderstood, persecuted
Afro-Brazilian activity into a celebrated art practiced by millions
around the world. In 2014, the United Nations Educational Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named capoeira an Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity, a distinction awarded because of the game's
promotion of social integration and the memory it holds of the struggle
against historical oppression. From an award-winning author-illustrator,
Game of Freedom is a stirring celebration of solidarity and resistance
through art.
