Sabino vaulted to national and international fame in 1956 with the novel A Time to Meet, the tale of three friends in the inland city of Belo Horizonte.

Sabino also enjoyed commercial success with The Great Insane and The Naked Man, which were made into films.

His circle of friends included Hélio Pellegrino, Otto Lara Resende, Paulo Mendes Campos, Rubem Braga, Clarice Lispector, Vinicius de Moraes, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, and Manuel Bandeira.

In the last ten years of his life, Sabino was distant from the media.

Following a prolonged illness, he died one day before his 81st birthday in his Rio de Janeiro home.