{"title":"Books by Machado de Assis","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781782278078","title":"The Looking-Glass","description":"\u003cb\u003eEnchanting, fresh translations of the finest stories by Brazil’s greatest writer and author of short stories, cited as the greatest black writer in Western literature\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Machado de Assis showed the human comedy is the same everywhere, and in conflicts between man and society, society usually wins.”  --\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMachado de Assis is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating story writers who ever lived. What appear at first to be stately social satires reveal unanticipated depths through flashes of darkness and winking surrealism. This new selection of his finest work, translated by the prize-winning Daniel Hahn, showcases the many facets of his mercurial genius.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e A brilliant scientist opens the first asylum in his home town, only to start finding signs of insanity all around him. A young lieutenant basks in praise, but in solitude feels his identity fray into nothing. The reading of a much-loved elder statesman's journals reveals hidden thoughts of merciless cruelty.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis beautiful new collection of fresh translations offers the perfect gathering of his most beloved stories:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Fortune-Teller\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Posthumous Portrait Gallery\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Loan\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Tale of the Cabriolet\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Stick\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Secret Cause\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Canon, or Metaphysics of Style\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Alienist\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Looking-Glass\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eMidnight Mass\u003c\/li\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205056495794,"sku":"9781782278078","price":12.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781782278078_e3adaed5-3be7-450f-9b42-1912c49ce412.jpg?v=1786025466"},{"product_id":"9781907970504","title":"Dom Casmurro","description":"\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205588156594,"sku":"9781907970504","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781907970504.jpg?v=1786029179"},{"product_id":"9780143135036","title":"The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas","description":"\u003cb\u003e\"One of the wittiest, most playful, and . . . most alive and ageless books ever written.\" --Dave Eggers, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA revelatory new translation of the playful, incomparable masterpiece of one of the greatest Black authors in the Americas\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Penguin Classic\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe mixed-race grandson of ex-slaves, Machado de Assis is not only Brazil's most celebrated writer but also a writer of world stature, who has been championed by the likes of Philip Roth, Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsberg, John Updike, and Salman Rushdie. In his masterpiece, the 1881 novel \u003ci\u003eThe Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas\u003c\/i\u003e (translated also as \u003ci\u003eEpitaph of a Small Winner\u003c\/i\u003e), the ghost of a decadent and disagreeable aristocrat decides to write his memoir. He dedicates it to the worms gnawing at his corpse and tells of his failed romances and halfhearted political ambitions, serves up harebrained philosophies, and complains with gusto from the depths of his grave. Wildly imaginative, wickedly witty, and ahead of its time, the novel has been compared to the work of everyone from Cervantes to Sterne to Joyce to Nabokov to Borges to Calvino, and has influenced generations of writers around the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis new English translation is the first to include extensive notes providing crucial historical and cultural context. Unlike other editions, it also preserves Machado's original chapter breaks--each of the novel's 160 short chapters begins on a new page--and includes excerpts from previous versions of the novel never before published in English.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56225418609013,"sku":"9780143135036","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780143135036_5f3ac591-406c-4c23-b112-de01b858e4fa.jpg?v=1786010989"},{"product_id":"9780747599043","title":"Epitaph of a Small Winner","description":"'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 has died and is now writing'. So begins the posthumous memoir of Braz Cubas, a wealthy nineteenth-century Brazilian. While the grave may have given Cubas the distance to examine his rather undistinguished life, it has certainly not dampened his sense of humour. Epitaph of a Small Winner is one of the wittiest self-portraits in literary history.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56298566877557,"sku":"9780747599043","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780747599043_f4f0ba42-5557-414b-b22b-823da9dba61a.jpg?v=1786014538"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-machado-de-assis.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}