BIOGRAPHY

Renato Modernell, writer in the Portuguese language, is of Neapolitan, Calabrian and Catalan descent. He was born on 19th. August, 1953 in the city of Rio Grande, on the East Coast of South America. In 1972, aged 18, he moved to São Paulo.

Since he graduated in Journalism in 1975, he has lived 
in many places. In Rome, he worked as a free-lance journalist covering politics. In London he attended History courses, and later in Barcelona he worked on a historical novel about immigration 
to South America.

He produced his first story when he was 9 and wrote his first poems during his university years. In 1978 he began writing fictional texts regularly, as well as working as a journalist. He has won several literary prizes. Many of his books were very well accepted in many niches by both readers and critics.

The first of his books to be printed commercially, “Che Bandoneón”, a biographical novel about the musician and composer Astor Piazzolla, was recommended for publication by the renowned writer, Raduan Nassar, and later received the Aquilino Ribeiro Award from the Lisbon Academy. His “Sonata of the Last City” (“Sonata da Última Cidade”) is considered by the highly respected critic, Wilson Martins, “the best novel ever written about São Paulo”. Another historical novel, “Voyage to the Wick of the Candle” (“Viagem ao Pavio da Vela”), set in Venice in the XIV century, has Marco Polo as a character. It was published in 2001, after a seven year interval in his literary activity.

In the early 1990’s, Renato Modernell began coordinating workshops on writing techniques and mid 1999 he adapted his method for Internet users. In more than two decades of journalism, he has worked for renowned newspapers and magazines and has won a journalistic award for a report in defense of the conservation of historical buildings in Brazil.