Brazilian cartoonist Marcelo D’Salete on history, slavery, politics and Tiodora’s Letters

Interviews Ramon Vitral | August 31, 2026 Photo of Marcelo D'Salete by Rafael Roncato. When Marcelo D’Salete began working on Tiodora's Letters: An Enslaved Woman's Fight for Family and Freedom, he had a smaller project in mind. It was supposed to be between 40 and 60 pages, possibly a young adult work with very little text. These ideas differed from his two previous works, the award-winnings Run For It: Stories Of Slaves Who Fought For Their Freedom and Angola Janga: Kingdom of Runaway Slaves. The project grew, new characters emerged, and the themes it addressed required further research. The book ended up at 224 pages. It is a historical fiction about the real efforts of an enslaved woman seeking her freedom in 19th-century São Paulo.tia Tiodora's Letters was first published in Brazil in 2022. The following year, the book won the Jabuti Prize, the most prestigious award in the Brazilian literary market, in the Comics category. It deepens themes present in D’Salete’s earlier works, expands on the reflections they propose about contemporary Brazil, and feels like a new chapter of Brazilian history through the perspective and ink of its author. D’Salete’s new graphic novel began to ...