Palma rice

The first novel to address Portuguese-Brazilian immigration in the 20th century, O arroz de Palma follows the journey of a family over the years, searching for a better future for their generations. Marked by Francisco Azevedo's lyrical and delicate writing, it both identifies and moves.

Antonio, now 88, prepares a grand lunch to celebrate his parents' hundredth wedding anniversary. His siblings, now in their octogenarians like him, and all their descendants attend the celebration. The story unfolds for him through family memories.

In a magical realism atmosphere, the central theme is the rice thrown at the patriarchs' wedding. The story begins on July 11, 1908, in Viana do Castelo, northern Portugal, at the wedding of José Custódio and Maria Romana. After the ceremony, the rice rains down on the newlyweds in torrents, a white rain that never stops. The procession continues to celebrate through the village, but the romantic Palma remains, happy with all the rice scattered across the churchyard. Very poor, she had enthusiastically decided that this would be her wedding gift to her brother and sister-in-law. Unfortunately, the rice, given with such love, results in the couple's first fight. From then on, for four generations, all the family's disputes, conflicts, dramas, and joys revolve around rice.

Palma rice speaks of the roots of the Portuguese immigrant. The simple, honest, and hard-working people who came in search of a better life in Brazil, full of dreams and projects, and who, transplanted to this soil, with much struggle and a spirit of resilience, took root, grew, and bore fruit.

The text "Family is a difficult dish to prepare," taken from the first chapter of the book, began circulating spontaneously on social media and turned the book into a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Proof, perhaps, that family is indeed a dish of immense complexity and that, as the old chef Antonio says, no matter how bland, no matter how bad the taste, we have to try and eat it.

"An old man is a child with a different spirit. He's no longer interested in running around in the gardens, climbing up and down on seesaws, or swinging back and forth on swings. It's all too little. What he wants now is to soar through the sky, to release the animals he's collected his entire life. All the animals—domestic, wild, useful, and harmful. The heavy reptiles he still holds dear to his heart, and the butterflies, fish, and birds—all loose up there!"