Machado de Assis (Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, from 1839 to 1908) was a Brazilian writer, novelist, short-story writer, chronicler, poet, and playwright, considered by many the greatest author in the country's literature. He was born on June 21, 1839, in Rio de Janeiro and grew up in the Morro do Livramento, the son of a painter and gilder, Francisco José de Assis, and of a Portuguese woman from the Azores, Maria Leopoldina Machado. He lost his mother early and, without the means for regular schooling, studied on his own.
His first literary work, a sonnet, came out in 1854, when he was 15. In 1856 he entered the Imprensa Nacional as an apprentice typesetter and later worked as a proofreader and newspaper writer. In 1869 he married Carolina Augusta Xavier de Novais, with whom he stayed for 35 years. From 1873 he worked at the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, a job that was his main means of support for the rest of his life.
His writing changes course with The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, published in serial form in 1880 and in book form in 1881, narrated by a dead man. Then came Quincas Borba, Dom Casmurro, Esau and Jacob, and Counselor Ayres' Memorial. Machado supported the creation of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from the start, installed in 1897, and was its president for more than ten years. He died in Rio de Janeiro on September 29, 1908.
In one sentence, for children: Machado de Assis was a writer who was born poor in Rio de Janeiro, learned almost everything on his own, wrote famous stories, and helped create the Brazilian Academy of Letters.
On Clavis: The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Quincas Borba.