Raduan Nassar 12th Brazilian author to win Camões Prize

Portugal's Secretary of State for Culture proclaimed Brazilian writer Raduan Nassar the winner of the 2016 Camões Prize on Monday (May 30). The author of Um Copo de Cólera, Lavoura Arcaica, and Menina a Caminho has been the 12th Brazilian author to win the €100,000 prize.

Established by Portugal and Brazil, the Camões Prize is at its 28th edition and is one of the top prizes in Portuguese-language literature. It is awarded annually to a Portuguese-language author whose works have contributed to enhance the profile of the language internationally.

According to Portugal's Culture Secretariat, Raduan Nassar's work “has helped raise a political and social awareness of authoritarianism.” His literary debut was with the 1975 novel Lavoura Arcaica (recently published in English as Ancient Tillage), which later earned a film version (English title: To the Left of the Father). In 1978, he published Um Copo de Cólera, which was also adapted for the screen (A Glass of Rage a.k.a. A Fit of Rage). In 1997, Nassar published a collection of short stories titled Menina a Caminho.

Nassar was born into a family of Lebanese immigrants in São Paulo state in 1935, where he studied Literature, Law, and Philosophy. In Brazil, his works were published by Companhia das Letras. With the publication of an English translation of Um Copo de Cólera by the UK's Penguin Books (titled A Cup of Rage), the author became longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.

The first Brazilian author awarded with the Camões Prize was João Cabral de Melo Neto in 1990. He was followed by Rachel de Queiroz (1993), Jorge Amado (1994), Antonio Cândido (1998), Autran Dourado (2000), Rubem Fonseca (2003), Lygia Fagundes Telles (2005), João Ubaldo Ribeiro (2008), Ferreira Gullar (2010), Dalton Trevisan (2012), and Alberto da Costa e Silva (2014). Last year, the prize was awarded to Portuguese novelist-poet Hélia Correia.

Translated by Mayra Borges