The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

Zusatztext Acclaim for Flora Thomson-DeVeaux’s Translation of  The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas “Is it possible that the most modern, most startlingly avant-garde novel to appear this year was originally published in 1881? . . . Machado’s book represents the moment when the novel learned to dance. . . . Flora Thomson-DeVeaux’s edition is a gift to scholars. Her introductory essay and notes offer a rich guide to Machado’s work and world—and an important corrective. . . . [Brás Cubas is] superb company.” — The New York Times “Brilliant . . . Charming . . . Digressive, playful, and irreverent . . . Thomson-DeVeaux’s [translation] comes with thirty pages of helpful endnotes that offer explanations of Brás’s arcane literary and historical allusions, as well as deleted passages from early versions of the novel.” ? The New York Review of Books “The best novel I have read in 2020 . . . [It] boasts a perceptive foreword by Dave Eggers. . . . In Thomson-DeVeaux’s hands, the text . . . rolls (often) merrily along, playful, acid, and with a liveliness impressive in an ‘author’ so dead. . . . Thomson-DeVeaux provides detailed and highly informative endnotes.” ?Andrew Stuttaford, The New Criterion   “[A] dizzying novel, so layered and duplicitous as to be a translator’s dream . . . The intensity of Thomson-DeVeaux’s personal engagement lifts her searching introduction and prolific endnotes. She also provides an essential bibliography. . . . Her deep research . . . has made all the difference to accuracy, while enriching the paratextual material. . . . The hope is that many more readers may come across this sui generis master, perched on his almost disconnected branch of the literary tree.” ? The Baffler   “[An] extraordinary book, a milestone in Latin American literary history . . . Outrageously funny and volubly impertinent . . . Not only does Thomson-DeVeaux explore the issue of Brazilian racial dynamics in her excellent introduction and endnotes, her attention to these themes is also reflected in her translation choices . . . [and] a deep engagement with social reality. . . . [In her] careful and meticulous translation . . . Thomson-DeVeaux brings across the unique rhythm of Machado’s prose, reproducing Brás’s clipped, highly punctuated syntax with great care. The peculiar tension between the sophistication of the style and the cruel absurdity of the content is maintained in English, allowing a unique 19th-century proto-Modernist Brazilian voice to be heard at full volume, in all its subtleties.” ? Los Angeles Review of Books “Highly entertaining . . . A fresh, lively translation . . . Machado deserves wider familiarity among English readers, and this is a fine place to start reading him.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Brilliantly idiosyncratic . . . Cubas endows every episode with scintillating digressions on history and literature along with gentle mockery of his own hypocrisy and pretensions. Thomson-DeVeaux’s limpid translation captures the charm and immediacy of de Assis. . . . His masterpiece reads like the best of dreams.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review “A newcomer with superb talents who researches and writes as if she were a seasoned veteran . . . translator Thomson-DeVeaux has . . . a contagious love for Machado’s novel. . . . Her introduction, notes on the translation and endnotes, and the extensive endnotes themselves are all delightful. She really did her homework and demonstrates a true dedication to her purpose. . . . Her version maintains the page breaks for all chapters. . . . No one else does that. And given the typographical play in the book, it does make a difference. . . . [A] winning translation.” ? Words Without Borders “A glittering masterwork and an unmitigated joy to read . . . It is wholly original and unl...

About the author

Dave Eggers is the author of many acclaimed books, including The Circle; What is the What and Zeitoun.

He is the founder of the publishing house and magazine McSweeney's and the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center that has inspired similar programs around the world.

His work has been translated into forty-two languages.

Summary

"One of the wittiest, most playful, and . . . most alive and ageless books ever written." --Dave Eggers, The New Yorker

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 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 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. Unlike other editions, it also preserves Machado's original chapter breaks--each of the novel's 160 short chapters begins on a new page--and includes excerpts from previous versions of the novel never before published in English.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Product details

• Authors: Machado De Assis, Dave Eggers, Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis, Flora Thomson-DeVeaux
• Assisted by: Dave Eggers (Foreword), Eggers Dave (Foreword), Flora Thomson-DeVeaux (Translation)
• Publisher: Penguin Books Uk
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.07.2020
• EAN: 9780143135036
• ISBN: 978-0-14-313503-6
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 129 mm x 197 mm x 15 mm
• Series: Penguin Classics
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Biographical, Biographical fiction, Classic fiction: general and literary