Second Book Presentation In Porto

I needed a break after those back-to-back presentations. That’s why I held the next one at the end of April 2023.

That was also the moment I realized something had to change. Of course, I was already exhausted — working 40 hours in just 4 days a week, while also traveling and organizing all the book presentations. But what was truly infuriating about Portugal was realizing that, when you actually calculate your net pay, you end up earning around 4 euros an hour.

I was only able to make all those events happen and bring books from Brazil to Portugal because I lived with a friend and didn’t pay rent. Otherwise, it would’ve been impossible to survive in Portugal while doing all that. And that’s exactly why I keep saying how important it is to have support systems.

But still, that was the reality I was living — caught between two very difficult places to reconcile. On one hand, I was living this dream: I was a writer, standing there in that incredible moment, wearing my red dress, feeling accomplished. But on the other hand, I was just a girl serving beer behind a counter, standing for 10 hours a day, making barely over 600 euros at the end of the month. Because working just 4 days a week meant I was on a “part-time” contract.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. In Portugal, it’s not only the financial exploitation of labor that’s an issue — there’s also a kind of tolerance for mistreatment. Not just because I’m Brazilian, but also because of a work culture that normalizes harshness and a lack of respect.

To give you a real-life example: besides having male bosses yell at me on multiple occasions, there was one night in particular. Right after the first book presentation — the one that felt like a dream — I went to work at the bar at 8 p.m. to cover for a colleague who wasn’t feeling well.

By 2 a.m., the bar needed to be closed. But there was a table of four men who refused to leave. Even after my colleague and I had cleaned everything, packed up, and done all the closing duties, they wouldn’t budge.

When we politely asked them again to leave and tried to collect their glasses, one of them got aggressive — he punched my colleague in the face and smashed a glass on the table.

And there I was — in the middle of four men, one of whom was attacking my coworker — with nothing I could do. As a woman. Powerless. And suddenly, I was transported back to that same bar atmosphere I had known as a child. Surrounded by drunk, violent men.

There we were — just two people working. But we were Brazilian immigrants. While they, Portuguese men, seemed to believe they could do whatever they wanted in their country.

And yes — of course this should’ve been reported. The police should have come. But what’s even more disturbing is that the surveillance cameras, which were always there to monitor us as employees, suddenly weren’t working at the exact moment we needed protection.

It was all very suspicious. And once again, a story gets ignored. And nothing is done.

That happened in January. By the time of the book presentation, it was nearly May. That was my last month working there. I was already at the point of deciding whether or not to quit — and above all, whether or not to leave Portugal.

And so, I made my decision. After that second book presentation — the one where, if you look closely, you can see the exhaustion in one of the photos — I submitted my resignation letter and began preparing to leave Portugal.