Machado de Assis

Machado de Assis (1839–1908), whose full name was Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, is regarded as one of the most important writers in Brazilian literary history. The grandson of freed slaves, he taught himself English, French, German, Greek and Latin, and he was the founder and first president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. He is renowned for his novels, including Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (1881), Quincas Borba (1891), and Dom Casmurro (1899), though he also published essays, plays, and Portuguese translations of works by Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and Edgar Allen Poe. A prolific poet, Machado de Assis wrote four books of poetry that he later compiled and republished as Poesias Completas (1901).