A masterwork about backcountry life by one of Brazil’s most celebrated novelists.

In 1941, a national literary poll in Brazil named Graciliano Ramos one of the country’s ten greatest novelists-one of only four living authors
on the list. His reputation has only increased there in the sixty years
since his death. Brazilian readers fight over which of his novels is
their favorite. Now St. Bernardo, his second-to-last novel, has
been freshly translated to English. This gritty, dryly
funny book tells the story of Paulo Hon rio, a field hand who learns to read and write in jail, emerging with the ambition of buying and
restoring to greatness the now-decrepit property where he was once a day
laborer. St. Bernardo, named for his ranch, is the memoir of
his rise and fall, written in his own rough-hewn voice. Flavored with
subtle ironies and rich local idioms, St. Bernardo will appeal
to readers of William Faulkner and Juan Rulfo, anyone who loves a
tragicomic story of a striving outsider and self-made man, ruthless and
tender in turns.