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Dom Casmurro
ByPublisher Description
LAUDED AS THE FIRST POST-MODERN NOVEL: A classic of Brazilian literature, this is the story of a happy marriage destroyed by jealousy.
“A beguilingly slippery tale by Brazil's greatest proto-modernist writer... a gifted portraitist of flawed human characters who harbor psychological depths.” - Kirkus Reviews
Bento Santiago – nicknamed Dom Casmurro for his grouchy demeanor – lives in a perfect replica of his childhood home in Rio de Janeiro. He spends his days reading and dozing, but once upon a time he was a happy husband and father. In a narrative full of twists, turns, sly winks at the reader and revelations that change our understanding of what came before, he tells the story of his life so far.
Promised to the priesthood at birth, Bento realises at 15 that he cannot fulfil his mother’s wishes: he is deeply in love with Capitú, the girl next door. Their passionate attachment sweeps opposition out of the way, and eventually they are married and, later, blessed with a son. Bento’s life is perfect – until the day he begins to suspect that Capitú has betrayed him with his best friend. Was her love a lie? Is his son really his own? And if he dismantles his entire life, will jealousy give way to regret?
For a century and a half, readers have argued over the truth at the heart of this story, and delighted in its witty ambivalence, formal inventiveness, and heartbreakingly doomed romance.
“A beguilingly slippery tale by Brazil's greatest proto-modernist writer... a gifted portraitist of flawed human characters who harbor psychological depths.” - Kirkus Reviews
Bento Santiago – nicknamed Dom Casmurro for his grouchy demeanor – lives in a perfect replica of his childhood home in Rio de Janeiro. He spends his days reading and dozing, but once upon a time he was a happy husband and father. In a narrative full of twists, turns, sly winks at the reader and revelations that change our understanding of what came before, he tells the story of his life so far.
Promised to the priesthood at birth, Bento realises at 15 that he cannot fulfil his mother’s wishes: he is deeply in love with Capitú, the girl next door. Their passionate attachment sweeps opposition out of the way, and eventually they are married and, later, blessed with a son. Bento’s life is perfect – until the day he begins to suspect that Capitú has betrayed him with his best friend. Was her love a lie? Is his son really his own? And if he dismantles his entire life, will jealousy give way to regret?
For a century and a half, readers have argued over the truth at the heart of this story, and delighted in its witty ambivalence, formal inventiveness, and heartbreakingly doomed romance.
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About Machado De Assis
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) is one of the greatest Brazilian writers of all time. The grandson of freed slaves, he was born to a poor family in Rio de Janeiro and, with little formal education, took work as a typographer's apprentice and began to write and publish at age 15. Machado went on to a successful career as a government bureaucrat and writer of romantic fiction. From the late 1870s his style became more complex and ironic, and he went onto write the ground-breaking stories and novels that would permanently charge the course of Brazilian letters, among them Don Casmurro and The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas. A collection of his stories, The Looking-Glass, is also available from Pushkin Press.
R.L. Scott-Buccleuch was awarded Brazil’s Machado de Assis medal for bringing the author’s work to an English-speaking audience.
R.L. Scott-Buccleuch was awarded Brazil’s Machado de Assis medal for bringing the author’s work to an English-speaking audience.
Other books by Machado De Assis
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