Posthumous memoirs of Brás Cubas : a novel
(Book)

"Acclaimed translators Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson offer this new rendition of Machado de Assis' classic novel. When the Collected Stories of Machado de Assis was published in 2018, it was hailed as a "literary event" by the LARB and as "landmark... heroically translated" by Benjamin Moser of The New Yorker. Now the "accomplished duo," (Sam Sacks, WSJ) returns with a fresh translation of Machado's definitive work, The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas. First published in 1881, it marks a pivotal moment in the development of Machado's career as a writer, as his characteristic flights into the surreal and the absurd became his literary staples. The novel begins with Brás Cubas recounting his own death-so, we quickly learn that these are not posthumous memoirs in the convention sense, but memoirs written, as it were, from the grave. It continues as absurdly as it begins, toggling effortlessly between literary, philosophical, historical, and sometimes wholly nonsensical digressions. He returns to his birth in 1805, and describes a childhood spent tormenting household slaves, succeeding and failing in love, finding friendship, obsessing over frivolities-a life of tedium and yet one that speaks to universal desires and aspirations. At the end of his life, he is proud of one thing: that he had no children to pass on his miserable legacy. Throughout, Bras Cubas' life is bolstered by the playfulness and black humor of Machado's prose, resulting in a work of uproarious mockery but also of great sympathy and melancholy-a tonal mix for which Machado is known and widely admired"--,Provided by publisher.