Tom Farias

Tom Farias
Born	1960
Occupation(s)	Journalist, writer, researcher

Tom Farias (born 1960) is a journalist, writer, and researcher of Afro-Brazilian culture, literature, and history.

Biography

Tom Farias, pseudonym of Uélinton Farias Alves, was born in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro. Farias is a journalist, writer, and researcher

of Afro-Brazilian culture, literature, and history.Through his work, he highlights the black literary scene in Brazil and its role in Brazilian cultural formation. Farias also writes weekly for the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo.

Publications

Among his most notable works are Cruz e Sousa: Dante Negro do Brasil — a book about the poet João da Cruz e Sousa who is considered one of the founders of Brazilian symbolism — and Carolina, Uma Biografia, a biography which depicts the life story of one of the first Black writers in Brazil, Carolina Maria de Jesus.In this book, Farias delves deeply into Carolina's life and work. He analyzed her contributions to the press, original archives from the National Library, and her memorial in Sacramento, Brazil. As a specialist in Brazilian literature, Farias is considered as one of the most influential researchers of Carolina's work. In 2021, Tom Farias released his book Escritos negros: crítica e jornalismo literatura (Black Writings: Criticism and Literary Journalism). This book aims to explore a selection of literary criticism and biographical accounts which illustrate the black Brazilian literary scene over the last 30 years. Most recently, Farias published a novel titled Todo Fúria which sheds light on the harsh, unjust realities that confront marginalized peoples in the favelas.

Awards

He was nominated twice for the Jabuti Award — a prestigious literary prize — in 2009 for Cruz e Sousa: Black Dante of Brazil and in 2019 for Carolina, a biography. In 2018, at FLUP, Literary Festival of the Peripheries, he received the “New Author” Award for this same work.