Brazilian Tales

Machado de Assis, 1839-1908Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
143K words
Chapters
15

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Mestizo SocietySocial ObservationFate and FortuneComplex HumanityPsychological InsightDaily ReflectionsSatirical StyleExotic CultureRio Life

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Brazilian Tales by Albuquerque, Coelho Netto, Dolores, and Machado de AssisAuthor: Machado de Assis, 1839-1908,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 12, 2007

Editor's review

Brazilian Tales is an English-language selection of Brazilian short stories, featuring works by Machado de Assis, Coelho Netto, Albuquerque, and Dolores. Machado de Assis is one of the most significant names in Brazilian literary history, known for his cool narration, irony, and insight into the subtle recesses of human nature; the other authors together present the diversity of Brazilian literature from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century in realism, local color, and urban themes. As a slim anthology, it serves more as an entry point to Brazilian literature than as a comprehensive reader. The English translation lowers the language barrier and suits readers interested in Latin American literature who do not yet know Portuguese. While reading, treat each story as a slice of a different style, note differences in narrative perspective and satirical technique, and consider how Brazilian literature echoes and departs from European literary traditions.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read by author, pausing after each author's works to compare stylistic differences.
  2. When focusing on Machado de Assis's pieces, pay attention to the narrator's tone and where the irony lands.
  3. While reading, note the regional and temporal clues in each piece to piece together fragments of Brazilian society.
  4. After finishing the selection, seek out Machado's major works for further reading rather than letting the anthology stand in for the whole.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15

FAQ

Can this anthology represent the full scope of Brazilian literature? No. It is a limited English-language selected translation containing a few short works by several authors, offering mainly introductory samples rather than a systematic, comprehensive picture of Brazilian literature. To go deeper, readers should continue with major works by Machado de Assis and others, along with literary-historical materials.
What is Machado de Assis's standing in the book? He is the most closely watched author in the selection and an important figure in Brazilian literary history. His short stories are notable for irony, cool narration, and close observation of human nature. However, this book is a multi-author collection, and his pieces make up only part of it; readers can use them as a starting point for encountering his short-story style.
Will the English translation feel distant to readers? It will feel somewhat distant. The works were written from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century and are read through an English translation, so some cultural background and place names require readers to fill in the gaps themselves. It is advisable to use notes or background materials while reading and to treat the book as a window onto Brazilian literature rather than pursuing entirely effortless fluency.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Machado de Assis, 1839-1908 Author

Machado de Assis (1839–1908) is one of the most influential writers in Brazilian literary history, with nine of his works included in this collection. His major novels, such as Dom Casmurro, Memorias Posthumas de Braz Cubas, Quincas Borba, and Esau e Jacob, focus largely on social life and psychology in Rio de Janeiro, employing irony, restrained narration, and unreliable narrators, with plots often revolving around jealousy, marriage, ambition, and identity. Short-story collections such as Papeis Avulsos and Historias Sem Data show his skill in concise storytelling, with a cool, humorous tone. Because public information is limited, details of his early life and biography are omitted here; his works nevertheless reveal a sustained scrutiny of human weakness and social hypocrisy, and his influence on later Brazilian literature is profound.