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A visit from his friend Paulo Evaristo Arns, then archbishop of Sao Paulo, convinced Freire that it was time to move back, and after 15 years of absence he returned to Brazil in March 1980. In this final period of his life we identify three main elements. The first was his active participation in the Workers’ Party, of which he was a founding member in 1980. The second was his involvement in the state, accepting an appointment as secretary of education of Sao Paulo in 1989. The third was his continuing engagement with books, not only through academic positions but also through writing: in the last 17 years of his life he produced more publications than in the previous six decades.

This generated resistance from landowners, who felt threatened by the possibility that peasants organize in associations, become educated and exercise their right to vote, thereby creating conditions for land reform. indd 22 4/26/2011 5:31:26 PM Intellectual Biography 23 control of the electoral college (Lownd 2001). The massive literacy campaign also received criticism from the influential daily O Globo, which charged that the method was subversive because it agitated people and gave them ideas about changing things (Kadt 1970, Monteith 1977, Taylor 1993, Sanders 2004).

1998). A junior teacher earned slightly more than a domestic servant, and staff turnover was high. These challenges did not diminish Freire’s determination to make a difference. indd 36 4/26/2011 5:31:28 PM Intellectual Biography 37 to public schools. He confessed that it was not going to be easy to put into practice all the ideas that he discussed in his many books, but at the same time, he was enjoying the challenge because it gave him a new sense of purpose: “It is one thing to write down concepts in books, but it is another to embody those concepts in praxis.