Machado de Assis

Who is Machado de Assis?

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, born in Rio de Janeiro to a mixed-race house painter and a Portuguese washerwoman, rose from poverty and largely self-taught origins to become the most celebrated figure in Brazilian literature. He worked as a typesetter, journalist and civil servant while writing across every genre. His mature novels, beginning with The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881) and continuing with Quincas Borba (1891) and Dom Casmurro (1899), broke sharply with romantic conventions, introducing irony, unreliable narration, digression and a skeptical, psychologically acute view of human vanity that anticipated modernist fiction. He was also a master of the short story and a refined poet. In 1897 he co-founded the Brazilian Academy of Letters and served as its first president, a post he held until his death. Long recognized in Brazil, his international reputation has grown steadily, and he is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the Americas.

Sources: Machado de Assis, 'Dom Casmurro' (1899) · Machado de Assis, 'Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas' (1881) · Brazilian Academy of Letters (Academia Brasileira de Letras) official records