Autor/Autorin: Lopes Helen
He was born in Codó, Maranhão, in 1970. He graduated in History from the Federal University of Maranhão and has a Master's degree in History from the Federal University of Pernambuco. He has taught as a substitute professor at the Federal Universities of Maranhão and Tocantins. He currently works in photography and documentary film production.
The choice to study the memory of the residents of the city of New York is the subject of this book. The period in question is set in the second half of the 20th century and focuses on decisive moments in Maranhão's political history. This moment was permeated by contradictions characterised, on the one hand, by the idea of development and progress in the state with the construction of the Boa Esperança Hydroelectric Plant and, on the other, by the destruction/reconstruction of the city. In the wake of these events, the focus is on the rhetorical construction of the so-called New Maranhão project, which engendered a kind of euphoria to be thought of as a historical experience, at the same time as a form of representation of the development discourse.