A personal, immersive portrait of how an "unlovable" city became the engine of modern Brazil—part of Travel with a Writer, The Walking Tree's series pairing leading authors with the places they know best.
São Paulo is not a city that reveals itself easily. Vast, unequal, and often overwhelming, it resists simple narratives—yet it is precisely here that Brazil's economic, cultural, and political transformations take shape.
Drawing on decades of reporting on Latin America, Brian Winter shifts from analysis to something more immediate, entering the city at street level.
Moving through neighborhoods, histories, and everyday encounters, he traces how São Paulo transformed from an industrial hub into a global powerhouse—driven as much by improvisation and resilience as by ambition.
Curious, sharp, and unabashedly affectionate, this is an exploration of a city that must be learned from within—and of why the places that seem hardest to love are often the ones we return to most.
