Machado de Assis es considerado el escritor más importante de la literatura brasileña. Sus obras influyeron profundamente en las escuelas literarias brasileñas de finales del siglo XIX y del siglo XX. Su producción literaria se caracteriza por una profunda introspección psicológica y una visión irónica de la sociedad. Aunque no gozó de gran popularidad fuera de Brasil en vida, hoy es un autor admirado.
O solitário Bentinho relembra sua vida e o seu amor pela bela e intrigante Capitu - um dos maiores personagens da literatura brasileira. E partilha com o leitor o ciúme e a desconfiança que encheram de amargor a sua vida.
Machado de Assis (1839-1908) is the great Brazilian author of Philosopher or Dog? and Epitaph of a Small Winner, whose work is admired by writers as different as Salman Rushdie, Carlos Fuentes, Woody Allen and Susan Sontag. Taken from his mature period, these dazzling stories echo Poe and Gogol, anticipate Joyce, and have been compared to the writing of Chekhov, Maupassant and Henry James, yet his modern sensibility and clear-eyed humour remain utterly unique.
'If Borges is the writer who made Garcia Marquez possible then it is no
exaggeration to say that Machado De Assis is the writer who made Borges
possible' - Salman Rushdie
When the mad philosopher Quincas Borba dies, he leaves to his friend Rubiao the entirety of his wealth and property, with a single stipulation: Rubiao must take care of Quincas Borba's dog, who is also named Quincas Borba, and who may indeed have assumed the soul of the dead philosopher. Flush with his newfound wealth, Rubiao heads for Rio de Janeiro and plunges headlong into a world where fantasy and reality become increasingly difficult to keep separate. Brilliantly translated by Gregory Rabassa, Quincas Borba is a masterful satire not only on life in Imperial Brazil but the human condition itself.
"A revelatory new translation of the playful, incomparable masterpiece of one of the greatest black authors in the Americas. The mixed-race grandson of ex-slaves, Machado de Assis is not only Brazil's most celebrated writer but also a writer of world stature, who has been championed by the likes of Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsburg, John Updike, and Salman Rushdie. In his masterpiece, the 1881 novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (translated also as Epitaph of a Small Winner), the ghost of a decadent and disagreeable aristocrat decides to write his memoir. He dedicates it to the worms gnawing at his corpse and, in 160 brief chapters, tells of his failed romances and halfhearted political ambitions, serves up harebrained philosophies, and complains with gusto from the depths of his grave. Wildly imaginative, wickedly witty, and utterly unforgettable, it is a novel ahead of its time that has been compared to the work of everyone from Cervantes to Sterne to Borges to Joyce to Nabokov to Calvino, and that has influenced generations of writers around the world. This new English translation is the first to include extensive notes providing crucial historical and cultural context and also includes excerpts from previous versions of the novel never before published in English"-- Provided by publisher
Accompanied by a thorough introduction to Brazil's Machado, Machado's Brazil,
these vibrant new translations of eight of Machado de Assis's best-known short
stories bring nineteenth-century Brazilian society and culture to life for
modern readers.