The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas

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**The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas**

The author himself dedicated this copy to the Bibliotheca Nacional, the National Library of Brazil.
Author	Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Original title (if not in English)	Memorias Posthumas de Braz Cubas
Translator	Gregory Rabassa
Country	Brazil
Language	Portuguese
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Oxford University Press (Eng. Trans. hardback edition)
Released	1881 (1 October 1997 Eng. translation)
Media Type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	238 p. (Eng. Trans. hardback edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-19-510169-3 (Eng. Trans. hardback edition)

The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas (Portuguese: Memorias Posthumas de Braz Cubas), often subtitled as the Epitaph of a Small Winner, is a novel by the Brazilian writer Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis.

Published in 1881, the novel has a unique style of short, erratic chapters shifting in tone and style. Instead of the clear and logical construction of a normal nineteenth-century realist novel, the novel makes use of surreal devices of metaphor and playful narrative construction.

It is rather commonly mentioned that this novel is under heavy influence of The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, due to its comic content and irreverent style.

[edit] Plot introduction

The novel is narrated, incredibly, by the dead protagonist Bras Cubas. Cubas tells his own life story from beyond the grave, noting his mistakes and failed romances. Cubas reveals the defects of Brazilian society and his own disillusionment in a poignantly satirical manner. Brás Cubas dedicates his book to the first worm that gnawed his cold body: To the vermin who first bite the cold flesh of my body, I dedicate with good remembrances this Posthumous Memoirs. (in Portuguese: Ao verme que primeiro roeu as frias carnes do meu cadáver dedico com saudosa lembrança estas Memórias Póstumas.)

The novel is also connected to another Machado de Assis work, Quincas Borba, which features a character from the Memoirs as the main protagonist. It's a novel recalled as a major influence by many post-modern writers, such as John Barth or Donald Barthelme, not to mention just about every Brazilian writer in the 20th century.