Audio · 2026-07-09 · 54m · 6 moments

Machado de Assis

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the towering figures of Brazilian and world literature, Machado de Assis (1839 - 1908). He was the descendant of slaves and built his career while slavery was still in place in Brazil (abolished 1888) and many of his characters were from the slave-owning class who were also the readers of his books. At the time, those readers were delighted to see themselves represented and it was only later in the 20th Century that critics realized just how much Machado ✦ AI generated

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GUEST Claire Williams GUEST Ana Claudia Suriani da Silva GUEST Viviani Carvalho da Annunciation

timeline · colored by role

Claim◆

Machado de Assis is the Pelé of literature: he inherited a European tradition, mastered it, and transformed it into something unmistakably Brazilian and original.

Viviani compares Machado to Pelé, arguing that like Pelé transformed European football, Machado transformed European literary traditions into something uniquely Brazilian.

transcript

Viviani Carvalho da Annunciation: Machado just sees us sometimes called the greatest Brazilian writer, but I come to think of him as the Pele of literature. Machado did the same thing as Pele did for football. He inherited an European tradition, mastered it and transformed it, completely creating it, something unmistakably Brazilian and original.

Mechanism

In The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, the narrator being dead gives him license to say things he couldn't say while alive, allowing him to look back over his whole life and draw conclusions.

Claire explains the central conceit of Brás Cubas: a dead narrator who, because he is dead, can speak freely about his life and society.

transcript

Claire Williams: He's dead when he's writing it, and he tells us at the beginning, after making a dedication to the worms that gnawed on his cold body, the first worm who gnawed on his cold body, that this is not the book of an author who has died, but a dead man who has become an author. So he tells us right from the very beginning that he's not a very good writer, but he is quite good at being dead. And being dead gives him license to say all sorts of things that he couldn't say when he was alive.

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Context

Brás Cubas represents the failure of the Brazilian elite — he achieves nothing, leaves no legacy, is a failed scientist, failed politician, and bad lover — and contemporary critics initially failed to see this critique.

Ana Claudia explains that Brás Cubas is a critical portrait of the Brazilian elite's failure and entitlement, which early readers misinterpreted as celebrating the character.

transcript

Ana Claudia Suriani da Silva: He constructs a character that is going to embrace the blindness of Brazilian elite. And for many times, critics couldn't understand that he was actually being critical to the status quo because that character, who achieves nothing, leaves no legacy, is a failed scientist, a failed politician, a bad lover, is actually represents the failure of the Brazilian elite, yes?

explains mechanism · 1provides context · 1

Example◆

Don Casmurro is both Othello and Iago at the same time — the reader never knows whether Capitou was unfaithful because the entire story is told by an unreliable first-person narrator whose name contains 'Iago'.

Viviani explains how Machado subverts the Othello narrative in Don Casmurro: the narrator Bento Santiago (nicknamed Don Casmurro) is both the jealous Othello and the manipulative Iago, and the reader can never know the truth about Capitou.

transcript

Viviani Carvalho da Annunciation: We don't hear her voice. We hear her through his eyes. But he's very jealous. He believes that his best friend, Escobar, had an affair with her, and their child is actually his best friend and not his. ... It took an American critic, Helen Caldwell, in the 80s, 90s, to write the Brazilian Othello. And she pointed out to us, which was right in front of us, you shouldn't trust this first person narrator. ... Machado is a brilliant author that he is, he's already showing us Iago is inside his mind. So Don Cazmuhu is both Othello and the Iago at the same time, both the duped one and the person who's suggesting that Capitou is unfaithful.

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Data

Machado applied the scientific method in his short stories to critique the eugenics and whitening discourses of 19th-century Brazil, challenging the association of race with degeneracy.

Viviani argues that Machado used his fiction, particularly stories like The Alienist, to critique the emerging eugenics movement and the Brazilian government's whitening project that associated mixed-race people with degeneracy.

transcript

Viviani Carvalho da Annunciation: At the end of the 19th century, we have the beginning of eugenics. Nina Rodriguez was writing in a similar way as Cesare Lombroso in Europe, identifying the race with criminality, certain aspects of genetic predisposition. And of course, Machado Jassiz was not only Afro-descendant, but he also had a strange illness... epilepsia. And it was believed that it was associated with degeneracy, with the mixture of races. And in a way, when Machado Dassiz wrote stories like The Alienist, he was trying to criticize also these new scientists.

provides context · 1

Claim

Machado de Assis teaches readers how to doubt narratives and not trust the media system — a skill more important now than ever.

Ana Claudia argues that Machado's enduring relevance lies in how his works teach readers to question narratives and information sources, making him particularly important in today's media environment.

transcript

Ana Claudia Suriani da Silva: Machado is the type of writer that teaches how to read and how to doubt narratives, which is something very important nowadays. So he teaches us basically how to be not to trust the media system. So he's writing novels. He's writing for periodicals. He's criticizing the information that is circulating in Brazilian periodicals all the time. He's mocking those who actually own the newspapers, the bookshops. And this is an excellent reading skill to acquire.

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Highlight slides

Machado de Assis: O Pelé da Literatura✦ from: Machado de Assis is the Pelé of literature: he inherited a European tradition, mastered it, and transformed it into something unmistakably Brazilian and original.Paralelo com Pelé✦ from: Machado de Assis is the Pelé of literature: he inherited a European tradition, mastered it, and transformed it into something unmistakably Brazilian and original.The Unreliable Narrator Problem in Don Casmurro✦ from: Don Casmurro is both Othello and Iago at the same time — the reader never knows whether Capitou was unfaithful because the entire story is told by an unreliable first-person narrator whose name contains 'Iago'.Bento as Both Othello and Iago✦ from: Don Casmurro is both Othello and Iago at the same time — the reader never knows whether Capitou was unfaithful because the entire story is told by an unreliable first-person narrator whose name contains 'Iago'.The Unknowable Truth✦ from: Don Casmurro is both Othello and Iago at the same time — the reader never knows whether Capitou was unfaithful because the entire story is told by an unreliable first-person narrator whose name contains 'Iago'.

Related episodes

Article · Simon Willison's Weblog

Machado de Assis is the Pelé of literature: he inherited a European tradition, mastered it, and transformed it into something unmistakably Brazilian and original.

In The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, the narrator being dead gives him license to say things he couldn't say while alive, allowing him to look back over his whole life and draw conclusions.

Brás Cubas represents the failure of the Brazilian elite — he achieves nothing, leaves no legacy, is a failed scientist, failed politician, and bad lover — and contemporary critics initially failed to see this critique.

Don Casmurro is both Othello and Iago at the same time — the reader never knows whether Capitou was unfaithful because the entire story is told by an unreliable first-person narrator whose name contains 'Iago'.

Machado applied the scientific method in his short stories to critique the eugenics and whitening discourses of 19th-century Brazil, challenging the association of race with degeneracy.

Machado de Assis teaches readers how to doubt narratives and not trust the media system — a skill more important now than ever.

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