Knowra Machado de Assis Machado de Assis Machado de Assis (1839–1908) was a Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright, and short-story writer whose formally inventive fiction became central to Portuguese-language literature.
Brazilian literature : Literature written in Brazil, shaped by the country's languages, histories, and cultural traditions. Machado's writing became a defining achievement within Brazil's national literary tradition.
The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas : A 1881 novel narrated by a dead, wealthy Brazilian who recounts his life with digressions and mordant self-criticism. Its posthumous narrator embodies Machado's experiments with audience, sequence, and unreliable self-portraiture.
Romanticism : A literary and artistic movement emphasizing emotion, imagination, individual experience, and the power of nature. Machado's early fiction reflects romantic conventions that his mature work increasingly unsettles.
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis : The author's full name, commonly shortened to Machado de Assis. This formal name appears in biographical and institutional records, while his works are usually attributed to Machado de Assis.
John Barth : An American novelist known for postmodern fiction that foregrounds narrative artifice and self-reference. Barth praised Machado's formal inventiveness as a precedent for self-conscious modern fiction.
Brazilian Empire : The constitutional monarchy that governed Brazil from independence in 1822 until the republic was proclaimed in 1889. Many of Machado's stories examine class and power in the society of this period.
Dom Casmurro : A novel narrated by Bento Santiago, who reconstructs his past and suspects his wife of adultery. Its unresolved account of Capitu's alleged betrayal makes narration itself the central problem.
Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas : The original Portuguese title of Machado de Assis's novel commonly published in English as The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. The Portuguese title marks the language and national context of the novel that signaled his mature style.
José de Alencar : A nineteenth-century Brazilian novelist whose fiction helped shape national literary identity. Alencar's influence and prominence provide context for the literary world Machado entered.
Susan Sontag : An American essayist, critic, and novelist whose writing addressed literature, art, and politics. Sontag's essays helped bring Machado's work to a wider international audience.
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