Brazilians have traditionally and very accurately viewed their nation as the product of the coming together and subsequent interaction of its disparate racial ancestry: native American Indians, Portuguese settlers and African slaves. Examining the social and cultural implications of this racial diversity is essential to the search for a viable and cohesive national identity, which has long been a major concern of Brazil's writers. Originally published in 1983, Three Sad Races is a study of how Brazilian literature - the only national literature in the Americas comparable in both quantity and quality to that of the United States - reflects these themes and gives vent to the general disquietude concerning the nation's predicament. Haberly presents an innovative interpretation of the development of Brazilian literature from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, as well as detailed critical analyses of the works of six of the nation's greatest writers.

Machado de Assis is considered the pre-eminent writer of Brazil. Quincas Borba is one of his four most important novels and features some of the same characters as Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas. The main character of this novel is a well-meaning country fellow who moves to the city with his dog, Quincas Borba, named after the mad philosopher who was his previous owner. As the dog's new owner explores the social, political, and commercial world of the city, he also tries to come to grips with the motives that lie behind every human action and begins to ponder what madness really is. Despite the "heavy" messages behind this book, the narration is light-hearted, allowing readers to laugh both at the foibles of society and at themselves.