Freire was offered a visiting professorship at Harvard University in 1969. The next year, Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published in both Spanish and English, vastly expanding its reach. Because of the political feud between Freire, a Christian socialist, and the successive authoritarian military dictatorships, it wasn’t published in his own country of Brazil until 1974. After a year in the United States, Freire moved to Switzerland to work as a special education advisor to the World Council of Churches. During this time he acted as an advisor on education reform in former Portuguese colonies in Africa, particularly Guinea Bissau and Mozambique.
Freire moved back to Brazil in 1980. He joined the Workers’ Party in the city of São Paulo, and acted as a supervisor for its adult literacy project from 1980 to 1986. When the Party prevailed in the municipal elections in 1988, Freire was appointed Secretary of Education for São Paulo. In 1986, his wife Elza died. Freire married Ana Maria Araújo Freire, who continues with her own educational work.
Paulo Freire died in 1997.