Epitaph of a Small Winner

by Machado de Assis, William L. Grossman (Translator), Susan Sontag (Foreword)

“I am a deceased writer not in the sense of one who has written and is now deceased, but in the sense of one who had died and is now writing.” So begins the posthumous memoir of Braz Cubas, a wealthy nineteenth-century Brazilian. Though the grave has given Cubas the distance to examine his rather undistinguished life, it has not dampened his sense of humor. In the tradition of Laurence Stern’s Tristram Shamdy, Epitaph of a Small Winner is one of the wittiest self-portraits in literary history.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Brazil, Literature, Romance, Novels, Portuguese Literature

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1881

About the author

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, often known as Machado de Assis, Machado, or Bruxo do Cosme Velho, (June 21, 1839, Rio de Janeiro—September 29, 1908, Rio de Janeiro) was a Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short story writer. He is widely regarded as the most important writer of Brazilian literature. However, he did not gain widespread popularity outside Brazil in his own lifetime.
Machado's works had a great influence on Brazilian literary schools of the late 19th century and 20th century. José Saramago, Carlos Fuentes, Susan Sontag and Harold Bloom are among his admirers and Bloom calls him "the supreme black literary artist to date."

Reviews

[Yulia]

Дааааааааа! Я закончила её!
Больше всего поражает язык конечно. Читаешь и аж плакать хочется: какая красота, какой потрясающий язык, что же вы с ним сделали?
И еще история жизни автора: житель бедных районов Рио, потомок негров-рабов, мулат в девятнадцатом веке социального неравенства и расовых теорий, ставший известным писателем и классиком литературы.