Joaquim M. Machado de Assis

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

A Novel

Helena

"A small masterwork, freshly translated , by one of the great novelists of the 19th century. A retired Brazilian diplomat (Ayres) recounts the love affair of a young widow who would rather be faithful to her dead Romeo. How she rejoins the world of the living, rekindling Ayres' spirit as well, is told with muted allusions to Brazil's plantation life and its emancipation of the slaves."--Chicago Tribune "This novel first appeared in 1908 , the year of Machado de Assi s' death . . It is a mild story, mildly told with a muted form of irony . . it is without self-pity, an elegiac book . . . unmistakably the work of a masterful writer."--Kirkus Reviews "Packed with wit, with compassion, with valiant self-knowledge. It is an experience I urge you to undertake."--Cleveland Plain Dealer "A novel as ironic as any of Machado's earlier fiction, but with a new sense of ripeness and tender regard for those whom life tries and tests. It is a last fitting monument to the art of Machado de Assis."--Nation

Counselor Ayres' Memorial

Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas

The love story that the Counselor narrates revolves around Fedilia and Tristao, who both are the godchildren of childless couple Aguiar and Dona Carmo. It is thought that the marriage between Aquiar and Dona Carmo is modeled after the relationship between de Assis and his wife, Caroline. The Counselorʹs diary entries chronicles Fideliaʹs transition from a widow bent on a lifelong habit of mourning her dead husband to a woman who rediscovers the world of the living and of love. Written in the late 1880s, the counselorʹs diary documents some of the social changes taking place in Brazil. There are several mentions of slavery and its abolition on May 13, 1888. The counselor does not himself engage much with the issue saying that old ways of thinking prevail even as he recognizes that he should assume more responsibility and interest in the matter. This stance apparently reflects the authorʹs own public disengagement with the issue of slavery and its abolition. de Assis, whose father was a mulatto, has been heavily criticized for not politicizing his works and addressing the plight of black Brazilians in his works. I disagree with this sentiment. -- Description from http://kinnareads.wordpress.com (Oct. 24, 2011).

Joaquim M. Machado de Assis

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