“Is it possible that the most modern, most startlingly avant-garde novel to appear this year was originally published in 1881?”—Parul Sehgal, New York Times Now considered a progenitor of South American fiction, Machado de Assis’s highly experimental novel is finally rendered as a stunningly contemporary work. Narrating from beyond the grave, Brás Cubas—an enigmatic, amusing and frequently insufferable antihero—describes his childhood spent tormenting household slaves, his bachelor years of torrid affairs, and his final days obsessing over nonsensical poultices. “Rejuvenated” (Pradeep Niroula, Chicago Review of Books) by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson’s fresh new translation, Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is a work of acerbic mockery and deep pathos that offers a bird’s-eye view of how Machado de Assis launched the canon of modernist fiction.“Sprinkled with epigrams, dreams, gags and asides, the story teases, dances and delights.”—Economist