During the first two weeks of March, the department of Spanish and Portuguese welcomed author Itamar Vieira Jr. as part of its long-standing writer-in-residence programs. Over the past two decades, the department has hosted acclaimed Brazilian writers and artists, among them, Milton Hatoum, Nuno Ramos and Ricardo Aleixo. In 2024, it was the Bahian author Itamar Vieira Jr. who graced our halls.
His residency began on Monday, March 4, with a reading and conversation between Itamar and translator and literary scholar Johnny Lorenz, moderated by Professor Nathaniel Wolfson, at the iconic City Light Books in San Francisco. They read from the Portuguese and English versions of Torto Arado, Itamar's resounding debut novel, and then answered questions from an audience made up of Bay Area readers.
Over the next two weeks Itamar participated in the life of the department by doing more readings and visiting Portuguese undergraduate and graduate courses, where he read from and discussed his novel and short stories.
During his residency at UC Berkeley it was announced that Itamar was awarded the Montluc Resistance and Liberty Prize for the French translation of Torto Arado and that he and Johnny were placed on the long list of the prestigious International Booker Prize for the novel's English translation (Crooked Plow, Verso Books, 2023). Since then they have made it onto to the short list. Estamos torcendo por vocês, Itamar e Johnny!