About João Guimarães Rosa
João Guimarães Rosa ( ZHWOWN ghee-mə-RYNEZ; Portuguese: [ʒuˈɐ̃w ɡimaˈɾɐ̃jz ˈʁɔzɐ, ˈʒwɐ̃w -]; 27 June 1908 – 19 November 1967) was a Brazilian novelist, short story writer, poet and diplomat. Rosa only wrote one novel, Grande Sertão: Veredas (known in English as The Devil to Pay in the Backlands), a revolutionary text for its blend of archaic and colloquial prose and frequent use of neologisms, taking inspiration from the spoken language of the Brazilian backlands. For its profoundly philosophical themes, the critic Antonio Candido described the book as a "metaphysical novel". It is often considered to be the Brazilian equivalent of James Joyce's Ulysses.In a 2002, poll by the Bokklubben World Library, "Grande Sertão: Veredas" was named among the best 100 books of all time. Rosa also published four books of short stories in his lifetime, all of them revolving around the life in the sertão, but also addressing themes of universal literature and of existential nature. He died in 1967 — the year he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature — due to a heart attack. In this town, Rosa had his first contact with elements from the sertão. Grande Sertão: Veredas was followed by Primeiras Estórias (“First Stories”), a collection of twenty-one short stories, published in 1962.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.