Widely acclaimed as the progenitor of twentieth-century Latin American
fiction, Machado de Assis (1839-1908)--the son of a mulatto father and a
washerwoman, and the grandson of freed slaves--was hailed in his
lifetime as Brazil's greatest writer. His prodigious output of novels,
plays, and stories rivaled contemporaries like Chekhov, Flaubert, and
Maupassant, but, shockingly, he was barely translated into English until
1963 and still lacks proper recognition today. Drawn to the master's
psychologically probing tales of fin-de-siecle Rio de Janeiro, a world
populated with dissolute plutocrats, grasping parvenus, and struggling
spinsters, acclaimed translators Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson
have now combined Machado's seven short-story collections into one
volume, featuring seventy-six stories, a dozen appearing in English for
the first time.
Born in the outskirts of Rio, Machado displayed a precocious interest in
books and languages and, despite his impoverished background,
miraculously became a well-known intellectual figure in Brazil's capital
by his early twenties. His daring narrative techniques and coolly ironic
voice resemble those of Thomas Hardy and Henry James, but more than
either of these writers, Machado engages in an open playfulness with his
reader--as when his narrator toys with readers' expectations of what
makes a female heroine in "Miss Dollar," or questions the sincerity of a
slave's concern for his dying master in "The Tale of the Cabriolet."
Predominantly set in the late nineteenth-century aspiring world of Rio
de Janeiro--a city in the midst of an intense transformation from
colonial backwater to imperial metropolis--the postcolonial realism of
Machado's stories anticipates a dominant theme of twentieth-century
literature. Readers witness the bourgeoisie of Rio both at play, and,
occasionally, attempting to be serious, as depicted by the chief
character of "The Alienist," who makes naively grandiose claims for his
Brazilian hometown at the expense of the cultural capitals of Europe.
Signifiers of new wealth and social status abound through the landmarks
that populate Machado's stories, enlivening a world in the throes of
transformation: from the elegant gardens of Passeio Público and the
vibrant Rua do Ouvidor--the long, narrow street of fashionable shops,
theaters and cafés, "the Via Dolorosa of long-suffering husbands"--to
the port areas of Saúde and Gamboa, and the former Valongo slave market.
One of the greatest masters of the twentieth century, Machado reveals
himself to be an obsessive collector of other people's lives, who
writes: "There are no mysteries for an author who can scrutinize every
nook and cranny of the human heart." Now, The Collected Stories of
Machado de Assis brings together, for the first time in English, all of
the stories contained in the seven collections published in his
lifetime, from 1870 to 1906. A landmark literary event, this majestic
translation reintroduces a literary giant who must finally be integrated
into the world literary canon.
