A revelatory new translation of the playful, incomparable masterpiece of one of the greatest black authors in the Americas A Penguin Classic 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 Ginsberg, John Updike, and Salman Rushdie. In his masterpiece, the 1881 novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras 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 ahead of its time, the novel has been compared to the work of everyone from Cervantes to Sterne to Joyce to Nabokov to Borges to Calvino, and 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.

Author Biography

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), the mixed-race grandson of freed slaves, was born in Rio de Janeiro. Largely self-taught, he wrote many novels, stories, plays, and poems, eventually becoming the first President of the Brazilian Academy of Letters and gaining recognition as Brazil's greatest writer. Flora Thomson-DeVeaux (translator/introducer) is a translator, writer, and researcher who studied Spanish and Portuguese at Princeton University and earned a PhD in Portuguese and Brazilian studies from Brown University. She lives in Rio de Janeiro. Dave Eggers (foreword) is the bestselling author of more than ten books, including A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; What Is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His work has been translated into more than forty languages, and his nonfiction and journalism have appeared The New Yorker, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Essays. The founder of McSweeney's, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Eggers lives in Northern California with his family.