Brazilian writer Raduan Nassar turns 90 on November 27, and his work 'Lavoura Arcaica', published half a century ago, continues to challenge certainties and social structures. Son of Lebanese immigrants, Nassar blends diverse literary influences in a narrative that explodes the patriarchal order. His radical literature sounds even more relevant in times of polarization.
Raduan Nassar, one of Brazil's leading writers, turns 90 on November 27. Despite claiming that 'there is no artistic or literary creation worth a creation of chickens,' his work remains influential. Published 50 years ago, 'Lavoura Arcaica' is a coming-of-age novel divided into 'The Departure' and 'The Return,' inspired by the structure of the 'Odyssey' and the Orphic tradition, with an epigraph from Jorge de Lima: 'What guilt do we have for this plant of childhood / for its seduction, its vigor and constancy?'.
Son of Lebanese immigrants who arrived in Brazil in 1920, Nassar narrates in the first person a story close to his biography, but mediated by literary grafts. Influences include the Bible, the Quran, 'The Book of One Thousand and One Nights,' Thomas Mann, Walt Whitman, and André Gide. The first edition contained author's notes and a dedication to his father, removed at his request in later editions, along with the genre indication.
In 2016, Nassar received the Camões Prize, the most important in the Portuguese language. A new complete edition by Companhia das Letras restored the notes. His last book, 'A Cup of Wrath,' was published in 1978, after which he dedicated himself to farming, which he donated to the Federal University of São Carlos. At the Camões ceremony in 2017, he criticized the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff and the Temer government.
Written in the 1960s-1970s during the Cold War, the novel detects the difficulty of resisting power without reinforcing it. The clash between son and father explodes the patriarchal order, using extreme acts like incest and wrath to shake customs, in the style of Greek cynics. As Sabrina Seldmayer explains in 'On the Left Side of the Father' (1997), the 'unbridled' enunciation evokes an original language. The tragic ending, with the house in ruins, recreates the origin from the present, echoing: 'the cattle always go to the well'.