NELSON CRUZ

20,5X24 cm | 72 pages | BRL 65
ISBN  978-65-89835-40-0

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Hans Christian Andersen
Award finalist illustrator
2024 - Nelson Cruz

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This story began to take shape in the mind of
artist Nelson Cruz from the image of the writer João
Guimarães Rosa riding the mule Balalaika alongside
several cowboys, accompanying the driving of a
cattle in the interior of Minas Gerais in 1952. "One
day, I felt that the image had become an idea that
disturbed my mind in such a way that it seemed
to have taken on a life of its own. The ideas started
coming in quantity and disorderly", says the author.
So it began a period of research, in which Nelson
produced more than two hundred drawings. But
the story still lacked a voice. One day, in an interview
with the cowboy Zito, he discovered who would be
his narrator: a boy of around nine years old who had
accompanied the journey. More than seventy years
later, this trail that inspired one of the most important
works by Guimarães Rosa, Grande sertão: veredas (The
devil to pay in the backlands), is once again traversed by
Nelson and his boy in this edition of ÔZé.