Author and diplomat João Almino had just landed in Madrid to take over as consul general for the Brazilian embassy there when he received a phone call telling him to return to home. But he wasn’t being recalled, instead, he’d just won the Passo Fundo Zaffari & Bourbon Literary Award. So, Almino packed his bags and flew to Passo Fundo, the southernmost state, to receive the generous cash prize of R$150,000 [US$ 91,000] at the opening ceremony of the Jornada Nacional de Literatura.
Almino has written five novels (four of them award-winning) set in Brasília, the capital. He is also the author of ten more nonfiction titles, many of them on political philosophy.
