This talk examines the editorial and translational trajectory of Carolina Maria de Jesus’s final manuscript, Minha vida ou Um Brasil para os brasileiros: Contos e poesias, first published not in its original Portuguese but in French as Journal de Bitita. Drawing on Saidiya Hartman’s theorization of waywardness and the diasporic symbolism of the Yoruba orixá Exú, we argue that Diário de Bitita—the Portuguese translation of the French edition—is a wayward text: one that resists transparency, defies editorial containment, and reflects the dislocations of the Black Diaspora. Through close readings of the manuscript’s prologue and its fraught naming practices, we interrogate the racialized power dynamics embedded in Jesus’ authorship and posthumous representation. Why was the manuscript published under the name “Maria Carolina,” her mother’s name, rather than the author’s own? What does this reveal about global circuits of literary legitimacy and the marginalization of black Brazilian voices? By juxtaposing Bitita’s Diary with José Lins do Rêgo’s canonical Menino do Engenho, we illuminate the divergent narrative paths of Black and white childhoods in early 20th-century Brazil. Ultimately, this talk foregrounds the necessity of waywardness in black literary production.