Fernanda Farias De Albuquerque

Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque (1963 – 13 May 2000), was a Brazilian trans woman (travesti) and author. She is best known for her autobiography Princesa (Princess), which is a name she sometimes used as a pseudonym.

Biography Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque was born in the Brazilian countryside in the Alagoa Grande municipality of Paraíba, in 1963. She grew up without her father in a family in poverty. She was sexually abused as a child and, shortly thereafter, ran away from her maternal home. After receiving little formal education, she briefly worked as a kitchen assistant in São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro before entering into the sex trade in these cities under the pseudonym Princesa (Princess). In prison, she met Giovanni Tamponi, a Sardinian shepherd sentenced to life imprisonment. The two exchanged notebooks, written in a mixture of Portuguese, Sardinian and Italian.

At Tamponi's suggestion, she began to write her story with the director and journalist , who was also detained in the same prison, and promoter of some literary projects among the prisoners. In this way, she wrote her autobiographical novel Princesa, with Jannelli translating de Albuquerque's Sardinian-street Italian text into standard Italian. The book discusses the violence which was inflicted on transvestite and transgender streetwalkers, both from the police and vigilantes (the latter including murders of her colleagues). She also discusses her drug and alcohol addiction.

For a short time, de Albuquerque was hired as a secretary in Sensibili alle foglie, but left her job "to go back to the sidewalk because that is my fun, my freedom, my victory". She also spent a very short period as a guest of the Comunità di San Benedetto al Porto at the Port of Genoa, directed by the streetwise priest Don Andrea Gallo. The documentary was selected at the Venice Film Festival and subsequently broadcast on Rai 2 and .

After being expelled and repatriated to Brazil, she died by suicide in May 2000. She is played by Ingrid de Souza, an amateur trans actress. Unlike in real life, in the film de Albuquerque is able to overcome her hardships and does not die by suicide. The film did not achieve initial success, but won an award for the best foreign film in the Outfest festival in Los Angeles.

Publications Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, Princesa - Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque, Editrice Sensibili alle Foglie, 1994. ISBN 88-86323-31-X Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, Princesa, Ekdoseis Delphini, Athens, 1994, ISBN 960-309-160-X Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, A Princesa - Depoimentos de um travesti brasileiro a um líder das Brigadas Vermelhas, Editora Nova Fronteira, Rio de Janeiro, 1995. ISBN 85-209-0650-8 Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, Princesa - Ein Stricherleben, Rotbuch Verlag, Hamburg, 1996. ISBN 3-88022-372-6 Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, Princesa - Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque, Editorial Anagrama, Barcelona, 1996. ISBN 978-84-339-2359-2 Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, Princesa, Héliotropismes, Marseille, 2021, ISBN 979-10-97210-09-0

Filmography Carlo Conversi, Princesa : incontri irregolari, RAI Storie vere, 1994 , Le Strade di Princesa – ritratto di una trans molto speciale, Lantia Cinema & Audiovisivi and Rai 2, 1997 Henrique Goldman, Princesa, Bac Films, 2001