Recife (Brazil), 1908 – Paris (France), 1973

By Rodrigo Nobile

The geographer Josué Apolônio de Castro had a humble childhood in Recife, alongside the populations living in the mangroves along the banks of the Capibaribe River—of which they survived. In 1925, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he graduated in 1929 from the National School of Medicine, which would later become the University of the Federal District (UDF).

He returned to Recife in 1930 after interning at the Medical Center of New York at Columbia University. He defended his post-doctoral thesis in 1932 at the Medical School of Recife, titled The Physiological Problem of Nutrition in Brazil. Between 1933 and 1935, he taught human geography at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences in Recife.

In 1935, he moved again to Rio de Janeiro, where he published Food and Race. The book deconstructed prejudices that suggested the supposed laziness and low intelligence of Black people and Indigenous peoples were the causes of hunger and the degraded social situation of these groups. That same year, he became a full professor at the UDF, which led to the establishment of the University of Brazil. He held the chair of human geography until 1964.

From the interaction between geography and nutrition, supported by disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, history, and economics, emerged the trilogy that would form the core of his work and make him an international reference in the debate about hunger. In 1946, he wrote Geography of Hunger, translated into 25 languages; in 1951, Geopolitics of Hunger; and in 1957, The Black Book of Hunger. Until then, hunger was considered merely a negative consequence of climate variations or “explained” by Malthusian or neo-Malthusian theories, but not as a perverse result of the social organization aimed at the production and sale of food for profit. Thus, Josué de Castro brought to the debate the role of socioeconomic relations, at both national and international levels, in the cause and perpetuation of hunger—highlighting land monopoly, monoculture, international trade, and neocolonialism—de-naturalizing and demystifying the issue. Hunger was not a merely biological phenomenon but rather the “biological expression of social ills.”

The impact of the first book of the trilogy earned him an invitation in 1947 to join the advisory committee on nutrition for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), an organization he would preside over from 1952 to 1956.

Simultaneously, he was elected a federal deputy for the State of Pernambuco in 1954 and 1958, playing an active role in the debate that inspired the emergence of the National Superintendency for the Development of the Northeast (Sudene). In 1962, he was appointed ambassador to the Brazilian delegation to the UN.

After the coup in 1964, Josué de Castro had his political rights revoked. He left his position at the UN and went into exile in France, where he taught human geography at the University of Paris and founded the International Development Center. He passed away in exile at the age of 65.

Josué de Castro received three nominations for the Nobel Prize, one for Medicine (1954) and two for Peace, in 1963 and 1970. Other notable works include Men and Crabs (1965), The Crab Cycle (1967), and two screenplays he wrote in 1958: Le Cri—a film produced in France—and The Drama of the Droughts, a documentary directed by filmmaker Rodolfo Nanni.