Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908) was born in Rio de
Janeiro and, as well as his seven short-story collections, wrote
such groundbreaking novels as Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Dom
Casmurro, Quincas Borba and The Alienist.
Margaret Jull Costa, who has translated Javier Marías and José
Saramago, lives in England.
Robin Patterson has translated José Luandino Vieira and lives in
England.
"The most modern, most startlingly avant-garde novel I read this
year was originally published in 1881. Jull Costa and Patterson
offer a peerless translation of this comic masterpiece, narrated
from beyond the grave by a feckless, pretentious, impossibly
winning aristocrat. The Brazilian novelist Machado was besotted
with the license afforded by fiction and the social critique
permitted only by comedy. Read this witty, wildly inventive work
and how conservative, how painfully corseted so much modern fiction
will suddenly seem."
*Parul Sehgal, 'Times Critics' Top Books of 2020' - The New York
Times*
"One of the wittiest, most playful, and therefore most alive and
ageless books ever written."
*Dave Eggers*
"The book’s invigorating style, as much as its backdrop of racial
and social injustice, makes it ideal reading for this morbid,
insurgent summer... Sprinkled with epigrams, dreams, gags and
asides, the story teases, dances and delights... [Machado']s
worldly, bruised voice reaches out to touch readers today with its
rueful comedy and wry sensuality."
*The Economist*
"A great ironist, a tragic comedian... In [De Assis] books, in
their most comic moments, he underlines the suffering by making us
laugh."
*Philip Roth*
"The greatest writer ever produced in Latin America."
*Susan Sontag*
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