Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Brazilian · 19th century

Brazilian novelist, short-story writer and poet, widely regarded as the greatest figure of Brazilian literature. His novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881) is narrated by a dead man looking back over his own life with detached irony.

Connection to Taylor Swift

Surfaced through community discussion of betty, where his posthumous narrator was offered as a forerunner of the Spoon River Anthology frame the hosts used for the folklore character songs: the dead given the run of their own stories, decades before Masters' graveyard spoke.

Notable Works

• The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas; Dom Casmurro; Quincas Borba