Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

"I passed away at two o'clock in the afternoon on a Friday in August in 1869, in my beautiful mansion in the Catumbi district of the city." So begins Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas-at the end of the narrator's life. Published in 1881, this highly experimental novel was not at first considered Machado de Assis' definitive work-a fact his narrator anticipated, bidding "good riddance" to the critic looking for a "run-of-the-mill-novel". Yet in this coruscating new translation, Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson reveal a pivotal moment in Machado's career, as his flights of the surreal became his literary hallmark. An enigmatic, amusing and frequently insufferable anti hero, Brás Cubas describes his Rio de Janeiro childhood spent tormenting household slaves, his bachelor years of torrid affairs and his final days obsessing over nonsensical poultices. A novel that helped launch modernist fiction, Brás Cubas shines a direct light to Ulysses and Love in the Time of Cholera.

About the author

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.
 

Summary

Machado de Assis’s iconic novel, now considered a progenitor of twentieth-century South American fiction, is finally rendered as a stunningly modern work.

Product details

• Authors: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Margaret Jull Costa, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
• Assisted by: Margaret Jull Costa (Translation), Costa Margaret Jull (Translation), Robin Patterson (Translation), Patterson Robin (Translation)
• Publisher: Norton and Co Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.08.2020
• EAN: 9781631495328
• ISBN: 978-1-63149-532-8
• Dimensions: 162 mm x 242 mm x 22 mm
• Series: Liveright
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Fantasy, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Classics, Classic fiction (pre c 1945), FICTION / Magical Realism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Urban, Magical Realism, Fiction: general and literary, Urban communities, Classic fiction: general and literary, Urban communities / city life