Raduan Nassar

Raduan Nassar is a Brazilian novelist, short story writer, and farmer born in 1935 in Pindorama, São Paulo, to Lebanese immigrant parents. He is one of the most celebrated and admired writers in Brazilian literature, known for a relatively small but extraordinarily concentrated and beautiful body of work. He has spent much of his life farming in the interior of São Paulo state. Nassar's major works are Lavoura Arcaica (Ancient Tillage, 1975), a lyrical, mythological novel about a young man who flees his family's patriarchal farm and the violent consequences that follow, and the story collection Um Copo de Cólera (A Cup of Rage, 1978). Both works are written in a dense, incantatory Portuguese that draws on the language of the Bible, classical mythology, and the earthy, physical world of rural Brazil. He received the Prémio Camões in 2016, the highest recognition in Portuguese-language literature. The prize honored a lifetime of artistic integrity and the enduring power of his two major works, which have become classics of Brazilian literature. Nassar is celebrated for his refusal to compromise his vision for commercial success and for the extraordinary beauty of his prose. Lavoura Arcaica has been translated into numerous languages and adapted into a celebrated Brazilian film.