Stories

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), the most admired author of all, wrote novels such as *Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas* and *Dom Casmurro*, among other masterpieces of Brazilian and international literature. However, it is in the short story that he epitomizes his greatest qualities as a writer. This anthology contains some of Machado de Assis's best short stories, all from his most mature period, in which we can perceive the characteristic that consecrated his style: the use of irony, which not only reveals a skeptical spirit in the face of reality but also is effective as a literary stance, capable of identifying a storyteller who distances himself from what he tells and keeps the reader equally at a distance.