A01=Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
abolition
Author_Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
brazil
Category=DS
class
cynicism
emancipation
enslavement
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
forthcoming
funeral
gravediplomat
human nature
irony
journal
loneliness
love
marriage
melancholy
old age
portugal
realism
rio de janeiro
slavery
social change
widow
Product details
- ISBN 9781324096795
- Weight: 411g
- Dimensions: 147 x 218mm
- Publication Date: 04 Aug 2026
- Publisher: W W Norton & Co Ltd
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Released two months before his death in 1908, Memorial de Ayres was Machado de Assis’s final novel. Written in the form of a diary, it follows the day-to-day happenings of a retired diplomat, Counselor Ayres, during the waning years of the Brazilian empire. Ayres lives a simple life: the most eventful parts of his week are lunch with his sister or a visit to their family cemetery. But a new love interest pushes Ayres from the confines of his quiet routine and into the warm, welcoming home of the Aguiars, an older couple who never had children. The Aguiar household is a centre of merriment, a necessary outlet for the reclusive Ayres–and where Brazil’s well-to-do ponder the momentous changes afoot. Marked by Machado’s sly humour and psychological subtlety–and set in a singularly transformative moment in Brazil’s history–Memorial de Ayres is a quietly prescient tale of personal and national legacy.
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839–1908) was born in Rio de Janeiro and is the groundbreaking author of such works as Dom Casmurro and The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson have translated the work of Lúcio Cardoso, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, and Clarice Lispector, among others. They live in England.
