Patrick Wilcken is a Brazil specialist and human rights activist who currently works at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London. He has over a decade of experience working on a wide range of human rights issues across Brazil. His research interests include policy developments in the criminal justice system, indigenous rights and housing policy. He has extensive field experience conducting research in indigenous reservations, the prison system, gang-dominated favelas, urban squats, cane plantations and areas of rural conflict. He has lobbied in Brasilia and at the UN, and has represented Amnesty in the media both in Brazil and internationally.
He is the author of two acclaimed non-fiction books: Empire Adrift: the Portuguese Court in Rio de Janeiro 1808-21 (Bloomberg, 2005) and Claude Lévi-Strauss: the Poet in the Laboratory (Penguin Press, 2010). Both books were published to great acclaim in the UK and the US, and have subsequently appeared in translation in Europe, South America and Asia. He has also authored a substantial body of academic and non-academic articles for a range of different publications.
