Ancient Tillage
SynopsisPlot
For André, a young man growing up on a farm in Brazil, life consists of “the earth, the wheat, the bread, our table, and our family.” He loves the land, fears his austere, pious father, who preaches from the head of the table as if from a pulpit, and loathes himself as he begins to harbor shameful feelings for his sister Ana. Lyrical and sensual, written with biblical intensity, this classic Brazilian coming-of-age novel follows André’s tormented path. He falls into the comforting embrace of liquor as―in his psychological and sexual awakening―he must choose between body and soul, obligation and freedom.
Story
About this book
Ancient Tillage is a novel by Brazilian writer Raduan Nassar, originally published in Portuguese as Lavoura Arcaica in 1975. The story centers on André, a young man raised on a farm in Brazil within a family shaped by strict religious discipline. His father governs meals and daily life with sermon-like authority, and the household follows rhythms tied to the land, the wheat, and the bread on the table. André grows up caught between devotion to this order and a growing resistance to it.
As André enters adolescence, he begins to experience desires he cannot reconcile with the moral code enforced at home. Among these is an attraction to his sister Ana, which deepens his sense of shame and isolation. He turns to alcohol for relief and faces an internal conflict between obedience and independence, between the body and the constraints placed on it by family and faith. The novel traces this tension without offering easy resolution.
Nassar's prose draws on biblical cadence and sensory detail rooted in rural life. The book was first translated into English decades after its original publication, introducing a wider audience to a work already well regarded in Brazilian literature. It remains one of Nassar's few published novels.
