Erico Veríssimo, who called himself a teller of stories and a painter with words, is a perennial favorite among Brazilian fiction readers of all ages. His literary career, which spanned nearly half a century from the early 1930s until his death in 1975, reflects the wide range of novelistic themes and stylistic innovations of a writer at once thoroughly integrated into the regional and national life of his own country and the greater Pan-American and international community.

Erico Lopes Veríssimo, son of Sebastião Veríssimo da Fonseca and Abigail Lopes Veríssimo, was born on 17 December 1905 in the small city of Cruz Alta in the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. His father, a pharmacist, died when Erico was quite young, and his mother sustained the family by working as a seamstress. After completing his elementary studies at a...