Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved the law that will declare 2024 as the “National Year of Fernando Sabino”. The aim is to celebrate and recognize the author’s significant contribution to Brazilian literature in the centenary of his birth. He would have turned 100 on October 12 of last year.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Sabino, who was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state. He died after a long battle against cancer on October 11, 2004, one day before his 81st birthday.
Who was Fernando Sabino?
Fernando Sabino was a Brazilian writer and journalist. He was born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, where he lived until he was twenty, when he moved to Rio de Janeiro.
Sabino was the author of 50 books, as well as many short stories and essays. His first book was published in 1941, when he was just 18 years old. Sabino vaulted to national and international fame in 1956 with the novel ‘A Time to Meet’, the tale of three friends in the inland city of Belo Horizonte. The book was inspired by Sabino’s life history.
Sabino also enjoyed commercial success with ‘The Great Insane’ and ‘The Naked Man” which were made into films.
Sabino considered friendship to be one of the most important things in life. His circle of friends included very well-known Brazilian names, such as Hélio Pellegrino, Otto Lara Resende, Paulo Mendes Campos, Rubem Braga, Clarice Lispector, Vinicius de Moraes, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, and Manuel Bandeira.
In the last ten years of his life, Sabino was distant from the media. Many of his close friends died before him. Two years before his death, Sabino was diagnosed with cancer. Following a prolonged illness, he died one day before his 81st birthday in his Rio de Janeiro home.
Source: TV Bric, Agência Brasil and Good Reads