Get to Know a Brazilian: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, generally known simply as "Machado de Assis," is considered by many to be Brazil's greatest novelist. He is the standard to which all other Brazilian authors are compared in one way or another, and his cultural influence in Brazil has only grown since his death 100 years ago this September.

Born to a mulatto descendant of slaves and a Portuguese woman in 1839 in Rio de Janeiro, Machado de Assis had humble origins. Little is known about his early years besides a few skeletal facts; he lost both his mother and sister at a young age (a fact which may have influenced the pessimistic tone of his later works). Many believe he was self-educated, even in his mastery of both French and English. He got his start writing for newspapers, but upon gaining a public position at the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works in Rio de Janeiro in 1873, he was able to devote his time to writing.

Despite his fame in short stories and novels, Machado de Assis's first published book, Crisálidas, was a collection of poems, released in 1864. After his marriage in 1869, he began publishing his first novels, including Helena and Contos Fluminenses. His writing style in the 1870s was marked by romanticist tones. However, with the publication of one of his most famous books, Brás Cubas, in 1881, his style shifted heavily. Writing in a realistic style, Machado de Assis's books increasingly employed humor that dulled what was an increasingly pessimism towards human beings. His most famous works came from this phase of his writing, including Brás Cubas, Quincas Borba, Dom Casmurro, and Memorial de Aires, a book that reflected on death (driven in part by the death of his wife in 1904) and was published in 1908, the year of his own death. He also frequently used the narration to talk directly to the reader, and literary scholars consider him one of the first authors not just in Brazil, but in the entire world, to take this approach, creating a narrative technique that would come to have a major role in the development of the "stream-of-consciousness" narrative that exploded in the twentieth century. Machado Assis's poems are not as famous as his novels and short stories, and indeed, are surprisingly different. Where the latter were concise, eloquent, and moving, the former were based more on vernacular, often bordering on vulgar. While respected, Machado de Assis's poetry hasn't received the same level of admiration and attention as his fiction.

Machado de Assis's cultural contributions do not stop with his own literary output. Being fluent in English, he translated many of Shakespeare's works to Portuguese. Additionally, he was one of the founding members of the Academia Brasileira de Letras, and was its president from its founding in 1897 to 1908. The Academia, still existent today, honors 40 Brazilian writers, selected by the Academy and Brazil's population itself, with a new member being elected when an old member dies. The existence of the Academia has helped to keep Brazil's literary tradition and development in the forefront of Brazil's culture.

Upon his death in 1908, his works hadn't gained much in the way of international renown, or even international familiarity. Today, however, Machado de Assis is widely recognized in Brazil and around the world as one of the greatest authors ever. Harold Bloom included him on his list of 100 geniuses of literature and even called him the "supreme black literary artist to date" in Genius.

However, while he is equally admired in Brazil (all Brazilians know at least some of his work, as he is required reading in schools and his works have been turned into movies, and the area of Rio de Janeiro where he lived is now called "Largo do Machado" in his honor), the race issue is far murkier in Brazil. Despite being an obvious Afro-descendant (even the sepia-toned photos of his time demonstrate this), his race is almost never mentioned in Brazil, and oftentimes the photos of him are even "lightened". When his race is brought up, he is referred to as "pardo," or brown, a phrase which is based as much in financial and cultural terms as race (though it is worth mentioning that he would never be considered "black" in Brazil, where such a term is reserved only for the poorest and darkest people unlike in the United States, where the "one-drop" theory makes him black to Bloom and all who are familiar with him).

Despite this glossing over of the race issue (acknowledging that the father of modern Brazilian literature is even "brown" would butt up against many Brazilians' racial conceptions), he is widely respected throughout the world, with figures as diverse as Woody Allen and Carlos Fuentes openly acknowledging his influence on their works. His literary output is well worth of its canonization, and for any interested in reading his works, they are easy to find, and many of them have been translated into English, including Brás Cubas, Memórias de Aires, Quincas Borba (as Philosopher or Dog?), Dom Casmurro, and numerous collections of short stories. While I have yet to read any of the novels (one of my 2008 resolutions is to read them in Portuguese), his short stories are some of the finest I've ever read, giving a great introduction to his work and his writing style, and are (in my opinion) as good a place as any to start.