Machado de Assis - BBC

What this episode covers

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 was satirising them. While he brings 19th Century Brazil vividly to life, Machado's works transcend time and place and, according to Salman Rushdie, they seem to have been written yesterday not 100 years ago. With Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva Associate Professor in Brazilian Studies at University College London Claire Williams Professor of Brazilian Literature and Culture at the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, fellow of St. Peter's College And Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge Producer: Simon Tillotson Reading list: Lamonte Aidoo and Daniel F. Silva (eds.), Emerging Dialogues on Machado de Assis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) Helen Caldwell, The Brazilian Othello of Machado de Assis: A Study of Dom Casmurro (University of California Press, 1960) Viviane Carvalho da Annunciação, The Contradictions of Science in Machado de Assis (Liverpool University Press, 2025) Machado de Assis (trans. Daniel Hahn), The Looking-Glass: Essential Stories (Pushkin Press, 2022) Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), 26 Stories (Liveright, 2019) Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), The Collected Stories of Machado de Assis (Liveright, 2018) Machado de Assis (trans. Flora Thomson-Deveaux), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (Penguin, 2020) Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (Liveright, 2020) Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Quincas Borba (WW Norton & Co, 2024) Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Dom Casmurro (WW Norton & Co, 2024) Machado de Assis (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson), Memorial de Ayres (Liveright, August 2026) John Gledson, Machado de Assis: Fiction and History (Francis Cairns, 1984) Richard Graham (ed.), Machado de Assis: Reflections on a Brazilian Master Writer (University of Texas Press, 1999) James N. Green, Victoria Langland and Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (eds.), The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Duke University Press, 2019) Daniel Hahn and Padma Viswanathan (eds.), The Penguin Book of Brazilian Short Stories (Penguin, January 2027) Mario Higa (ed.), A History of the Brazilian Novel (Cambridge University Press, August 2026), especially the chapter on Machado de Assis K. David Jackson, Machado de Assis: A Literary Life (Yale University Press, 2015) Anthony W. Pereira, Modern Brazil: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020) Roberto Schwarz (trans. John Gledson), A Master on the Periphery of Capitalism: Machado de Assis (Duke University Press, 2001) Lilia M. Schwarcz and Heloisa M. Starling (eds.), Brazil: A Biography (Allen Lane, 2018) Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva, Machado De Assis's Philosopher or Dog?: From Serial to Book Form (Routledge, 2010) Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos (eds.), Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Brazilian Novel (UCL Press, 2020), especially the chapters “Capitu against the Elegiac Narrator” by Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva and “Machado de Assis and the Novel” by Sandra Guardini Vasconcelos Marcus Wood, The Black Butterfly: Brazilian Slavery and the Literary Imagination (West Virginia University Press, 2019) In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

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This episode is 57 minutes long.

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This episode was published on July 9, 2026.

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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...

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