Author. Brazil’s leading novelist whose works have been translated into 48 languages and sold more than 20 million copies. Novels like “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands” and “The Violent Land” made him a regular candidate for a Nobel prize for literature, though he never won. He died of a heart attack in the north-eastern city of Salvador, the setting for many of his best-loved novels.  He wanted to be cremated, and have his ashes scattered around a big mango tree situated in the garden of his house, but his wife, the writer Z?lia Gattai, refused to do it. Instead, she buried the little coffin with his ashed under the mango tree. (bio by: Maiquel)