"TO THE WORM that first gnawed at the cold flesh of my cadaver"
Back in 2020, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, one of the major works of Brazilian literature, was released in the United States under the Penguin Classics label, in a dazzling new translation by Flora Thomson-DeVeaux. In that year, The Posthumous Memoirs became one of the bestselling works of Latin American fiction in the U.S.—a remarkable feat for a 19th-century novel. As it became a bestseller (the first print run sold out in a day), the editorial triumph of Machado de Assis—and of his translator—quickly reverberated in Brazil, sparking media coverage, opinion columns, and, to some Brazilians, a wave of national pride.
In 2024, tiktoker Courtney Henning Novak gave Thomson-DeVeaux's translation a raving review, re-igniting interest in the book that starts with this amazing dedication:
“TO THE WORM that first gnawed at the cold flesh of my cadaver I dedicate as a fond remembrance these posthumous memoirs”
This English translation expands the reach and the resonance of one of the most inventive novels ever written in Portuguese. There is no doubt that, thanks to Thomson-DeVeaux’s work, Machado is being introduced to more readers, critics, and editors outside Brazil—not only in the United States but globally. The translation has already become a landmark in the novel’s history—not only because of its commercial success, but also due to its exceptional quality and its richly researched critical apparatus.
But The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas had previously been translated into English three times—in 1952, 1955, and 1997. None of those editions succeeded in making Machado de Assis widely known in English-speaking countries. Will this new translation be any different? One translation alone is unlikely to overturn a century of underrecognition.
It hard to say if a challenging writer such as Machado will ever become an international classic, especially at a time when hyperconnectivity (and the resulting erosion of attention spans), the decline of silent reading time, and the increasing pressure to make “productive” use of leisure time all conspire against literature that is formally inventive or conceptually demanding. But then again, who knows?
1. Thoughts on Brazilian Literature
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that while certain authors, certain works, or entire literary movements from one country achieve global renown, others remain confined to their native tongues.
Brazilian literature is relatively unknown beyond the country’s borders. Machado de Assis—The “Wizard of Cosme Velho,” as he was affectionately called, is considered Brazil’s greatest novelist, but remains virtually unknown in much of the world. Machado is rarely read even by Brazil's Spanish-speaking neighbors in South America. His obscurity continues to puzzle not only Brazilian readers but also certain English-speaking critics who, like Harold Bloom, consider Machado one of the greatest fiction writers in the history of world literature.
Brazilian literature is, of course, far from the only neglected one; there are many, many nations with overlooked literary geniuses. It is difficult to explain, for instance, why Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is so much more widely read and translated than Ferdowsi’s incredible Shahnameh or even Luís de Camões’ The Lusiads.
In the case of Machado de Assis, I would argue that two primary factors have limited his global reach—one linguistic, the other contextual.
The first is straightforward: Portuguese (the language spoken in Brazil) is not globally influential. It's a paradox of sorts: despite being one of the most spoken in the world—currently the sixth in native speakers—, it enjoys limited cultural projection. While Portuguese is the official language of nine countries in four continents, nearly 90% of its speakers live in Brazil, whose publishing market is relatively modest. Furthermore, Portuguese is rarely studied as a second language abroad, especially when compared to other Latin languages such as Spanish or French.
George Steiner noted, in his 1982 essay An Exact Art, that Brazilian fiction had long suffered from a lack of translators in the English-speaking world: “The presence in the United States of a handful of talented and productive translators from Spanish was decisive in giving Latin American fiction and poetry their recent incandescent prominence. Simultaneously, the relative scarcity of translators from Portuguese meant that Brazilian fiction (judged by competent observers to rival Colombian, Mexican, Venezuelan, or Argentine exuberance) went largely unnoticed.”
Still, the language barrier alone doesn’t explain Machado’s marginal reception. Good translators may be a prerequisite for international success—but they are not, by themselves, enough. After all, the first English translation of The Posthumous Memoirs was published nearly seventy years ago and several others followed, always receiving favorable reviews. None had yet generated significant sales or widespread enthusiasm.
Susan Sontag—an ardent admirer of Machado’s work—once remarked that he would be far better known had he not spent his entire life in Rio de Janeiro. This observation may sound superficial at first, but it points toward a deeper truth: literary appreciation is, at heart, a comparative act. It requires readers to place a text within some kind of cultural or historical frame of reference. For non-Brazilians, this can be difficult. Even within Latin America, Brazil can seem culturally opaque. This is especially true in the case of Machado’s fiction, which was deeply embedded in the social and literary landscape of 19th-century Rio de Janeiro.
Back then, the global image of Brazil had little in common with the one that emerges from Machado’s work. Foreign readers expecting enchanted jungles or man-eating serpents would find none of that in his novels. Machado’s world is populated by the urban elites of Rio—characters not unlike the aristocrats of St. Petersburg or the genteel Americans in the novels of Henry James.
It’s worth mentioning that the romantic, “nativist” novels of another 19th century Brazilian novelist, José de Alencar—which are set in the forests of a mythic Brazil—also failed to find readers abroad. Perhaps even the trope of Brazil's primeval jungles had not yet taken hold back then (although it's also true that, quality-wise, Alencar's work is far from being as essential as Machado's).
The issue of context might become clearer when we consider the global success of 19th-century Russian literature: The Brothers Karamazov, for instance, was published just one year before The Posthumous Memoirs. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Turgenev were Machado’s contemporaries and enjoyed great international success in their lifetimes. The Russian greats benefited from early, high-quality translations in Western Europe—one example being Countess Irina Paskevich’s French translation of War and Peace, published very early, in 1879.
Other than the availability of good contemporary translations, another reason for their success may have to do with the fact that, when reading the Russian greats, the French in particular already had a framework, however romanticized, for imagining Russian society. Napoleon’s campaign against the Tsar had etched vivid images into the French imagination—of endless snowfields, the sounds of balalaikas, and tea in samovars. Despite the vast geographical and cultural gap between Paris and St. Petersburg, there were enough reference points—real or imagined—for French readers to situate themselves within the Russian literary world. Thus, while Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky wrote in what could be considered a difficult language from a distant country (not dissimilar to Brazilian Portuguese in this sense), they were nonetheless avidly read in France—and after that, the world.
When Machado wrote Brás Cubas, English was already a global language, buoyed by the military and economic might of the British Empire. That influence only grew in the 20th century, as mass media and the rise of American cultural industries cemented English’s status as the world’s lingua franca—far surpassing the global reach once held by French or Latin. No reader can hope to learn every language in which great fiction is written. Thus, for many around the world—from India to Denmark to Egypt etc.—English translations of lesser-known languages like Portuguese often represent the only access point to entire literary traditions.
Would Machado de Assis have achieved international renown in his lifetime if he had been born in Russia? Sontag seemed to think so. But the truth is we can’t know for sure. Consider, for instance, Ivan Goncharov—an important Russian author, praised by both Dostoyevsky and Chekhov. Regardless of his stature in Russia, he failed to gain traction in Western Europe as his contemporaries did. The fact that he never found a Western audience during his lifetime may have been due to any combination of a thousand small contingencies: the timing of publications, a missed opportunity with a prestigious publisher, the absence of a single influential review (Goncharov blamed Turgenev for his own lack of international recognition, an accusation that is curious, but, to me, unconvincing).
Despite the fact that the circulation of cultural works is conditioned by material conditions, by relations of production, and by the circulation of capital—the formation of literary canons is also the realm of some unpredictability. The global marginalization of certain authors, like Machado de Assis, reflects structural inequalities—such as the peripheral position of Brazil in the world-system, the limited global reach of the Portuguese language, and the uneven flow of cultural capital—but editorial decisions, the prestige economy of prizes and reviews, institutional gatekeeping, and the chance emergence of influential translators also have an element of chance that plays a part in how texts circulate and which are canonized. In this sense, the literary canon—like history itself—is, while generally shaped by material conditions, also, to a certain extent, defined by accidents.
2. And why does this matter anyway?
“[…] Serious people will find in the book the appearance of pure fantasy, while frivolous people won’t find their usual sort of romance; thus, it is deprived of the esteem of the serious and the affection of the frivolous, which are the two chief pillars of public opinion.” —Machado de Assis, preface “To the Reader”, The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas
Who cares about international recognition? A writer's success abroad doesn't mean anything about the quality or meaning of their work. But still...
Literature, like all art, operates both on individual and collective levels. The works we value shape our inner lives, but also our shared identity—how we see ourselves, and sometimes even how we wish to be seen. For this reason, the global neglect of a country's literary classics may lead its native readers to questions about whether their literature lacks the power or sophistication of others.
I'd argue that the success of a Brazilian classic matters to Brazilian readers because it allows our inner world to be seen and recognized beyond Brazil's borders. As Machado himself wrote in the short story The Mirror:
“Every human being carries two souls within: one that looks from the inside out, the other from the outside in… Whoever loses one of these halves naturally loses half their existence; and there are cases, not rare, in which the loss of the outward soul implies the loss of one’s entire existence.” —Machado de Assis, The Mirror
Machado's international success is a source of collective pride for Brazilian readers. But while one of Brazil's souls looks outward—seeking recognition, validation, esteem—the other soul looks inward. And what does that soul see?
Machado’s house in Cosme Velho—where he lived and wrote much of his work—was torn down to make way for a condominium. The past, it seems, is expendable. Worse still, is that Brazil's literature is also fighting an uphill battle for the future. Many Brazilian libraries face chronic neglect, and bookstores are becoming rarer. Despite the country's efforts to alleviate poverty and to reduce its frankly indecent inequality, what are the odds that a child such as Machado—who was born to black, working-class parents—will have the minimum material conditions to even attempt to become a writer in today's Brazil?
Sure, the international success of Thomson-DeVeaux's translation of Brás Cubas is a successful act of cultural bridge-building and a welcome sign of growing interest in Brazilian literature.
But foreign recognition is not everything—more important is what happens within: both to the conditions for Brazilian literature to exist and thrive, and also to the authors who are responsible for creating it: those classics of the past, those who are writing today, and, most important of all, those yet to come.
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