The Looking-Glass
Essential Stories
Published on 27. October 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-78227-807-8 (ISBN)
Description
Machado de Assis is one of the most enigmatic and fascinating story writers who ever lived. What seem at first to be stately social satires reveal unanticipated depths through hints 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.
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 of his new position, but in solitude feels his identity fray into nothing. The reading of a much-loved, respected elder statesman's journals reveals hidden thoughts of merciless cruelty.
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 of his new position, but in solitude feels his identity fray into nothing. The reading of a much-loved, respected elder statesman's journals reveals hidden thoughts of merciless cruelty.
Reviews / Votes
The greatest writer ever produced in Latin America -- Susan Sontag If Borges is the writer who made Garcia Marquez possible then it is no exaggeration to say that Machado De Assis is the writer who made Borges possible -- Salman Rushdie A great writer who chose to use deadly humor where it would be least expected to convey his acute powers of observation and his penetrating insights into psychology. In superbly funny books he described the abnormalities of alienation, perversion, domination, cruelty and madness. He deconstructed empire with a thoroughness and an esthetic equilibrium that place him in a class by himself * New York Times * Machado de Assis was a literary force, transcending nationality and language, comparable certainly to Flaubert, Hardy or James * New York Times Book Review *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 165 mm
Width: 120 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
377 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78227-807-8 (9781782278078)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2022
Pushkin Press
€9.59
Available for download
Persons
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis is widely regarded as among the greatest Brazilian writers of all time. He was born to a poor family in Rio de Janeiro and, with little formal education, took work as a typographer's apprentice and began to write and publish at age 15. Machado went on to a successful career as a writer of romantic novels and government bureaucrat. In the late 1870s he suffered a severe bout of illness, after which he wrote the ironic, complex masterpieces for which he is now famous, including The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas and Dom Casmurro.