A re-evaluation of her contributions to Brazilian literature has emerged since 2007, when Paim was discovered to still be living in Mato Grosso do Sul.
Leite was then sent to the boarding school, Grupo Escolar Fasuto Cardoso, where she studied anthropology, arithmetic, botany, Brazilian history, geography, geology, Portuguese language, and science.
[3] 1932, she returned to Salvador de Bahia to study at the Colégio Nossa Senhora da Soledade (College of Our Lady of Solitude), wrote her first pieces in the school paper, and graduated as a teacher.
Immediately after their wedding, the couple moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she could not work as a teacher because they refused to recognize her diploma.
The government's case against her collapsed when the public group supposed to weigh her recompense for the book's sedition, praised her for accurately telling of their experiences.
O Sol do Meio-Dia (1961) won the Antonio de Almeida Prize of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL) in 1961 and was translated into German and Bulgarian.
While the volumes reinforce cultural beliefs, behaviors, and values, Paim did not treat her child characters as subservient to adults, but rather as peers, which was extremely unusual for the era.
[3] She did not escape the persecution; because of her ties to the Partido Comunista Brasileiro (PCB) (Brazilian Communist Party) and defense of feminist causes, she was unable to publish any books until the 1979 Amnesty Law was passed.
During the Brazilian military government (1964–1985) she translated texts of Vladimir Lenin and published articles in periodicals including O Momento, from Bahia; Época, from Sergipe; and Leitura, in Rio de Janeiro.