Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Quincas Borba

Quincas Borba

De Assis, Joaquim Maria Machado
Costa, Margaret Jull
Patterson, Robin

Paperback

General FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $18.99

ISBN10: 1324096705
ISBN13: 9781324096702
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Published: Jul 15 2025
Pages: 352
Weight: 0.30
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.20
Language: English

Hailed in his lifetime as one of Latin America's greatest writers, Machado de Assis (1839-1908) was a storyteller known for his wholly innovative narrative techniques and uncanny talent for unraveling the social and political milieu of nineteenth-century Brazil. These signature traits are on full display in Quincas Borba, a novel that sees Machado satirize a rapidly changing Rio de Janeiro.

Originally published in 1891, the story begins with the death of its titular character, a mad philosopher infamous for spouting pessimistic theories of Humanitism. Borba leaves his fortune--including his dog, also named Quincas Borba--to Rubião, his loyal caretaker and a schoolteacher by trade. Bestowed with opulence beyond his wildest dreams, Rubião is quickly coaxed into the comforts of a rich man's life--the only stipulation being that he continues to care for the canine Quincas Borba with the same dedication he once did the human. Adrift in the big, bad, bustling world of late-1860s Rio de Janeiro, it isn't long before Rubião is targeted by the city's sycophants, who can smell his naïveté from a mile away.

Playfully told by an omniscient and possibly unreliable narrator, the novel is at once irreverent and ambitious, brimming with barbed wit and keen philosophical inquiry. Brilliantly translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson--the duo credited with introducing a new generation of readers to Machado through their translations of Dom Casmurro, The Collected Stories, and Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas--Quincas Borba is another strikingly modern tale from a blazing progenitor of twentieth-century fiction.

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