Machado de Assis was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1839 and died in 1908. The author of numerous novels, including Dom Casmurro and Philosopher or Dog?, he is one of Latin America's most treasured writers.

'Machado de Assis was a literary force, transcending nationality and language, comparable certainly to Flaubert, Hardy or James ... Epitaph of a Small Winner is clearly one of those books which we call definitive. It is there, complete, done: a study of ironic disillusionment couched in the most delicate suavity of despair' New York Times Book Review 'No satirist, not even Swift, is less merciful in his exposure of the pretentiousness and the hypocrisy that lurk in the average good man and woman. Machado, in his deceptively amiable way, is terrifying' New Republic 'A masterpiece of Epicurean irony' New York Times

Machado de Assis was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1839 and died in 1908. The author of numerous novels, including Dom Casmurro and Philosopher or Dog?, he is one of Latin America's most treasured writers.

'Machado de Assis was a literary force, transcending nationality and language, comparable certainly to Flaubert, Hardy or James ... Epitaph of a Small Winner is clearly one of those books which we call definitive. It is there, complete, done: a study of ironic disillusionment couched in the most delicate suavity of despair' New York Times Book Review 'No satirist, not even Swift, is less merciful in his exposure of the pretentiousness and the hypocrisy that lurk in the average good man and woman. Machado, in his deceptively amiable way, is terrifying' New Republic 'A masterpiece of Epicurean irony' New York Times

Machado de Assis was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1839 and died in 1908. The author of numerous novels, including Dom Casmurro and Philosopher or Dog?, he is one of Latin America's most treasured writers.

'Machado de Assis was a literary force, transcending nationality and language, comparable certainly to Flaubert, Hardy or James ... Epitaph of a Small Winner is clearly one of those books which we call definitive. It is there, complete, done: a study of ironic disillusionment couched in the most delicate suavity of despair' New York Times Book Review 'No satirist, not even Swift, is less merciful in his exposure of the pretentiousness and the hypocrisy that lurk in the average good man and woman. Machado, in his deceptively amiable way, is terrifying' New Republic 'A masterpiece of Epicurean irony' New York Times