Posthumous Novel Gives Immigrants View of Californias Dairy Farms

Twenty-eight years after his death, Alfred Lewis newly-published novel, Sixty Acres and a Barn, will be presented to the public at a series of lectures in California. Dr. Frank Sousa, director of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and editor of the book will explain the importance of Lewis work and how Sixty Acres and a Barn came to be published.

(PRWEB) March 13, 2005 -- Twenty-eight years after his death, Alfred Lewis newly-published novel, Sixty Acres and a Barn, will be presented to the public at a series of lectures in California. Dr. Frank Sousa, director of the Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and editor of the book will explain the importance of Lewis work and how Sixty Acres and a Barn came to be published.

Sixty Acres and a Barn tells the coming-of-age story of Luis Sarmento, an immigrant who finds in America a place of tolerance, prosperity and emotional fulfillment. This slice of immigrant life in California dairy farming is rendered memorably in prose at once insightful, lyrical and realistic in its representation of obstacles faced by those who live in insular enclaves between cultures. Sixty Acres constitutes a serious contribution to postwar ethnic literature, and makes Lewis the precursor of acclaimed Portuguese-American writers like Katherine Vaz and Frank X. Gaspar. Sixty Acres and a Barn is available through the distributor on the Internet at http://www.lusobraz.com or by phone at (800) 727-LUSO.

Alfred Lewis (1902-1977), the son of a nineteenth-century immigrant who had been a whaleman and a gold miner in California before returning to his homeland, was born in the mid-Atlantic island of Flores, in the archipelago of the Azores, Portugal. Lewis himself immigrated to California in 1922. Having learned English only after arriving in America, he nevertheless went on to study law, and rose to become a municipal judge in the San Joaquin Valley town of Los Baņos.

Lewis was the first Portuguese-American writer to claim the attention of the English-speaking public. His first published book, Home is an Island (Random House, 1951), is an autobiographical novel about boyhood in the Azores. According to the New York Times, Lewis style and quality of the narrative is most refreshing. Some of his descriptive passages, in the pellucid simplicity and rich imagery, ring with the lyricism of poetry."

Lewis is also the author of short stories. Two of these were referenced in Best American Short Stories (Houghton Mifflin) for 1949 and 1950. Lewis was a prolific and accomplished poet in both English and Portuguese. His poems, often published in English- and Portuguese-language magazines and newspapers, were collected posthumously under the title Aguarelas Florentinas e Outras Poesias (1986).

Sixty Acres and a Barn was edited by Prof. Frank F. Sousa, director of the UMD Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture and general editor of the Portuguese in the Americas Series, a publication of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

Dr. Sousas lectures will be held:
Tuesday, March 15, 2005 at 5:00 pm
California State University, Stanislaus
Classroom Building, Room C-208

Wednesday, March 16, 2004 at Noon
University of California, Berkeley
Moses Hall, Room 201

Friday, March 18, 2005 at 6:30 pm
Emerton Club (corner of Tulare Avenue and K Street in Tulare, CA)

The book may also be purchased through Luso-Brazilian Books (tel. 1-800-727-LUSO; fax: 212-568-0147; http://www.lusobraz.com).

The Publication of Sixty Acres and a Barn was made possible in part by a grant from the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores.

Sixty Acres and a Barn
by Alfred Lewis
Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Distributed by Luso-Brazilian Books
ISBN: 0-972256-15-6 (Paper)$20.00

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