Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) never left Brazil and
rarely traveled outside his native city of Rio de Janeiro, yet he
is widely acknowledged by those who have read him as one of the
major authors of the nineteenth century. His works are full of
subtle irony, relentless psychological insights, and brilliant
literary innovations. Yet, because he wrote in Portuguese, a
language outside the mainstream of Western culture, those with
access to his writings are relatively few.
This book is designed not only to call new attention to this
master but also to raise questions about the nature of literature
itself and current alternative views on how it can be approached.
Four essays address the question of Machado's "realism" in the five
masterpiece novels of his maturity, especially Dom Casmurro. The
noted contributors include John Gledson (University of Liverpool),
Joao Adolfo Hansen (Universidade de Sao Paulo), Sidney Chalhoub
(Universidade de Campinas), and Daphne Patai (University of
Massachusetts at Amherst).
Dain Borges of the University of California at San Diego says, "
This is the] only collection explicitly debating the question that
polarizes contemporary Brazilian criticism of Machado de Assis: was
he a sophisticated late realist, or was he a pioneering
anti-realist, even a postmodernist? The essayists] marshal their
evidence and argument with virtuosity and arrive at sharply
opposing conclusions."
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