Since the unprecedented success of Workers (published by Phaidon in 1993), Sebastião Salgado has been focusing his attention on the displacement of peoples across geographical and political boundaries. The series of pictures in Terra tells the story of the forced migration of the Brazilian peasants and their struggle to survive in the face of joblessness and extreme poverty.

Salgado shows the efforts of the peasants to reclaim the arable land they see as their natural heritage and recounts how this fight has often resulted in bloodshed. His empathy and understanding of the victims' plight and of human nature unbowed in the face of terrible adversity shines forth in these photographs, which are introduced by the Portuguese writer José Saramago and accompanied by poems by the Brazilian composer and popular singer Chico Buarque de Hollanda. Comprising 109 compelling photographs (the majority of which have never been seen before), this book is a moving photographic record of the 'landless' of Brazil.