Writers celebrate creation of Fernando Sabino National Year

Brazil’s National Congress has passed a decree, signed into law by President Lula, establishing the Fernando Sabino National Year, aimed at commemorating the centenary of the birth of the writer, who would have turned 100 on October 12 last year.

The year also marks the 20th anniversary of the death of the writer, who was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state. He died from liver cancer on October 11, 2004, one day before his 81st birthday.

Sabino was the author of 47 books of short stories, novels, and crônicas—short writings about daily events with an informal, witty tone. His correspondence—such as the letters exchanged over 50 years with his friends Paulo Mendes Campos, Otto Lara Resende, and Hélio Pellegrino—has also been published.

Sabino’s main work is O Encontro Marcado, sometimes referred to in English as A Time to Meet. The autofiction book was written in 1956 and has been published 100 times. “[It] is a wonderful achievement. It’s a generational novel that continues to speak to all generations,” columnist and biographer Humberto Werneck told Agência Brasil.

Before his success, the writer won the South American championship in backstroke in 1939. In the following decade, he started studying law and went into journalism as an editor at the former Folha de Minas newspaper.

“Sabino introduced a highly personal and successful way of telling stories. He was one of Brazil’s greatest storytellers in the 20th century. With just the bare minimum of resources, he can tell you a great deal,” Werneck noted.

Journalist and writer Fernando Sabino Bernardo Sabino/Acervo Pessoal

Another writer, Joaquim Ferreira dos Santos, cited Fernando Sabino’s A Última Crônica (“The Last Crônica”). “It’s a heartrending piece about the inequality between Brazilian families. Here’s the scene: in the corner of a bar, a father, a mother, and a daughter, all black, sing happy birthday to the little girl, who blows out the candle. It stands on top not of a whole cake, but a single slice, as that’s all the family could afford on the girl’s birthday. It’s so beautiful, so sentimental, so well written—and Brazilian to its core.”

Sabino won the Fernando Chinaglia Prize (1962), from the Brazilian Writers’ Union; the Machado de Assis Prize (1999), from the Brazilian Academy of Letters; and the Jabuti Prize (1980 and 2002), from the Brazilian Book Chamber.

His body was buried in the São João Batista cemetery in Rio de Janeiro, the city where he lived for most of his life. On his tombstone, the epitaph reads, “Here lies Fernando Sabino, who was born a man and died a boy.”