Hailed in his lifetime as Brazil’s greatest writer, Machado de Assis (1839?1908) has found a new generation of readers through a series of critically acclaimed translations by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson. Now, the duo returns to breathe new life into the irreverent, ambitious, and darkly funny Quincas Borba . Originally published in 1891, the novel begins with the death of its titular character, a mad philosopher infamous for spouting pessimistic theories of Humanitism. Borba leaves his fortune-including his dog, also named Quincas Borba-to Rubiao, his loyal caretaker. Adrift in the big, bad, bustling world of late-1860s Rio de Janeiro, it isn’t long before Rubiao is targeted by the city’s sycophants, who can smell his naivetA from a mile away. Playfully told by an omniscient-and possibly unreliable-narrator, and rife with Machado’s signature satirical jabs, Quincas Borba is another strikingly modern tale from a blazing progenitor of twentieth-century fiction.
