This research sets out to interpret the effects of truth in Abusado: o dono do morro Dona Marta, by Caco Barcellos, and Os sertões, by Euclides da Cunha. Effects of truth is an expression designed by philosopher Michel Foucault in reference to the fact of discourses being neither true nor false in themselves. In Os sertões, the effects of truth emerge from strategic power disputes between Church, landowners, politicians and a seaside ruling elite that ignores the reality of the poor and forsaken hinterlands. In Abusado, discourse emerges from the process of constructing the image of juvenile delinquency based on the relations between the imprisonment system, young offenders and society.