Iemanjá em Mares Verdes arrives at the Bahia Book Biennial, where Ilaina Damasceno turns a public religious celebration into resistance and memory.
Geographer and professor Ilaina Damasceno presents “Iemanjá em Mares Verdes” at the Bahia Book Biennial, with signing sessions at the Escreva, Garota! booth on April 17, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on April 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The book grows out of a doctoral research project at Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) and focuses on the Festa de Iemanjá in Fortaleza, celebrated for more than 50 years and recognized as the city’s intangible heritage in 2018. The work examines how Afro-Brazilian religions use public space as a stage for resistance and cultural affirmation.
“The presence of the Afro-Brazilian body in public rituals is an aesthetic-political experience that reinvents narratives and territories,” the author says.
Based on fieldwork carried out between 2011 and 2019, the book shows how the celebration at Praia de Iracema goes beyond religion. It becomes an act of visibility and a struggle for rights. Damasceno also highlights the participants’ performance, with music, gestures and clothing, as a way of “doing politics with the body.”
The book also links northeastern tradition and Afro-Brazilian ancestry, showing how devotion to Iemanjá, the “Great Mother,” strengthens Black and Indigenous identities in Ceará.
Born in Quixadá, in the countryside of Ceará, Damasceno says writing the book was a return to her own roots. Now based in Rio de Janeiro, she says the research deepened her connection to Umbanda and Candomblé and led her to become a cambone in a terreiro.
Besides adapting her thesis into a format accessible to non-academic readers, Damasceno is preparing a second book with interviews of priests and priestesses who organize the celebration, planned for November 2025. “Iemanjá em Mares Verdes” also speaks to geography studies and the Black movement by showing religion as a tool for social change.
In her background, Damasceno connects academic work with ethnic-racial relations, public space and peripheral cultures. She holds a PhD in Geography from UFF, teaches at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), and is part of the Afro-Brazilian Studies Center (NEAB). She also serves as an ekedji at Ilê Asé Abraça, in Rio de Janeiro.
Event Info
- Event: Book signings at the Bahia Book Biennial
- Author: Ilaina Damasceno
- Location: Escreva, Garota! booth – Centro de Convenções Salvador, in Boca do Rio, Salvador/BA
- Dates: April 17, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., and April 18, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Tickets available: https://www.ticketmaster.com.br/event/bienal-do-livro-bahia-2026
- Photo: Divulgação
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