Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics (Augusto Boal's Memoirs)

Augusto Boal's First Autobiography!

Augusto Boal, by any measure, has had an extraordinary life. The controversial founder of the Theatre of the Oppressed, he was imprisoned and tortured by the Brazilian military government in the seventies for his radical theater work which encouraged peasants to protest land reform.

Hamlet and the Baker's Son is Boal's remarkable story of how a small, observant boy from Rio became one the most vocal and political figures of 20th-century theatre. With passion and honesty, Boal traces his jagged journey from the early days in university theatre to his increasing dissatisfaction with available theatrical forms to his position as an elected official in the 1990s.

Exile and travel are the predominant features of his life. He recounts his sojourns to Latin American and European countries, a teaching job at New York University, and exile in Paris -- the culmination of which is a bittersweet return to the city of his youth, Rio de Janeiro.

Showing that personal life is inseparable from the artist's work, Boal continues to travel the world giving workshops and inspiration to teachers, prisoners, actors, and social workers. His autobiography gives voice to his unique gift of using the stage to empower the disempowered. It also tells a moving and memorable story of the family man behind the public orator.