Rachel Vega-Decesario at The New Press has acquired English translation rights for Luis Cardoso’s Portuguese novel O Plantador de Abóboras (Sonata para uma Neblina), or The Pumpkin Planter (Sonata for a Fog). Originally published in Portugal by Abysmo in 2020 (as well as in Brazil by Todavia in 2022; in Colombia, Argentina, and Mexico by Tragaluz in 2022; and Uruguay by Banda Oriental in 2025) this 2021 winner of the Oceanos Prize offers a poetic allegory of the political history of East Timor in the last century. Born in 1958 in Cailaco, Cardoso moved to Portugal and made his debut in 1997 with Crónica de uma travessia, a memoir of growing up in exile from his homeland that was published in English as The Crossing by Granta in 2002.
