By Bri Brands

When Stephen G. Bloom, professor emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, sat down to write his memoir in 2020, he was unsure anyone would find value in the story he was sharing.

That same memoir, The Brazil Chronicles, was published in November 2024 and recently won the Knudson Latin America Prize from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The Knudson Latin America Prize is given annually to a book or substantive project concerning Latin America or coverage of issues in Latin America.

Bloom began teaching at the University of Iowa in 1993 and retired in December 2024. During his 31 years in CLAS, Bloom taught nonfiction writing and wrote seven books, many of which received national attention. In 2020, Bloom was the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching in Journalism Award by the Society of Professional Journalists.

The Brazil Chronicles has been featured in Harvard’s Nieman Reports, Columbia Journalism Review, Publishers Weekly, Quill, California magazine, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Larry Rohter, the former Brazil bureau chief for The New York Times, called The Brazil Chronicles “one of the best books ever written about newspapers.”

The Brazil Chronicles details the two years Bloom spent after college as a foreign correspondent for The Latin America Daily Post in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as well as the story behind the newspaper itself.

To write The Brazil Chronicles, Bloom received a Professional Development Award from the college, allowing him to take a semester off teaching and dive into research. During that semester, Bloom interviewed more than 150 individuals and spent countless hours at The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., reading every issue of The Latin America Daily Post, which dates back to 1945.

"The college helped me considerably," he said. "The book would not have been written without the college." 

To Bloom, The Latin America Daily Post was a place of creativity, yearning to get published, and trying to make sense of the world—an experience he wanted to put on paper.

"I was a young man at the beginning of my career, and I was living in a foreign country. I knew no one when I moved there, and I've always wanted to make sense of that," Bloom said. "That's really what writers do—they make sense of their world." 

Throughout the book, Bloom touches on the impact of Brazil on Latin American culture.  

"In many ways, the book is a hybrid book," Bloom said. "It's about my story going to Brazil, but it is also a history lesson of the engine that carries the locomotive of all of Latin America." 

As he was writing the book, largely in solitude, Bloom found himself asking, “Who cares? Is anyone going to read this? What difference does it make?” 

Despite his questions to himself, Bloom never gave up, reminding himself of the importance of telling stories.

"The award itself answers that question: It means people are reading it," he said. "It does make a difference. It's important to set the record straight. It's important to create history. History isn't told unless someone records it."

Even though Bloom has retired from teaching, he continues to work hard and spends most of his time writing.