Auto-da-fe in Portuguese means act of faith. Auto-da-fe was the ceremonial public testimony imposed by the Holy Inquisition on heretics between the 15th and 19th centuries, with the most extreme punishment being death by burning.

Today, all forms of authority, like a modern impersonal Holy Inquisition, punish heretics with social ostracism. A heretic is someone who, in the pursuit of social climbing, does not sacrifice their autonomy. A heretic is also someone who, in order to keep critical thinking about the modern world alive, does not align with the prevailing interpretations of it, nor with the political parties across the ideological spectrum that transform these interpretations into political action.

This book represents my own heretical act of faith. I autobiograph myself as a sociologist with scientific candor, sharing significant personal data to illuminate the dialectical relationship between my individual journey and the social conditions I experienced. To explain how the social environment at any given time either allowed my abilities and qualities to emerge, empowering me to confidently manage highly dysfunctional relationships within my paternal family; or, conversely, suppressed my heretical choices and actions in various ways, leading to my social isolation.

The times we live in today have brought us to the threshold of unprecedented barbarity. Narrating a uniquely heretical life aims to ensure that even the vision of a different and profoundly humane world is not lost.