The Alienist and Other Stories of Nineteenth-Century Brazil

Chasteen has translated and edited seven short stories and one novella published during the period 1881-1906 by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Brazil’s most renowned writer and social satirist of the nineteenth century. [The] introduction. . . provides a useful, though relatively broad, snapshot of the century and historical era in which Machado de Assis lived and wrote. The brief preface to each story. . . demonstrates an interest on the part of Machado de Assis in showing everyday life, popular culture, women, male power and pretensions, and the politics of the elite. . . . Intended as an accessible and affordable introduction to Brazilian literature or as an accompaniment to a course on Latin American or Brazilian history. Recommended for classroom use and for those with an interest in world literature.” —Colonial Latin American Historical Review,

This beautifully translated selection of stories is a wonderful introduction to Brazil’s–and Latin America’s–greatest writer. Chasteen has done us all a great service by providing this wonderful volume to introduce and entice readers into the wonders of Brazilian culture. –Marshall C. Eakin, Vanderbilt University

Chasteen’s free translations convey the spirit of Machado’s stories; they feel like what Machado might have written in today’s English. Chasteen’s translation of The Alienist is exceptionally good: I have never enjoyed the story as much in Portuguese as in Chasteen’s version, which captures the narrative shifts and reversals with great timing.” –Dain Borges, University of Chicago

John?Charles Chasteen is Patterson Distinguished Term Professor of History, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.