Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was born on 21 June 1839 in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a house painter whose parents were freed slaves. He had a stammer and suffered from epilepsy; he was an apprentice at the National Press, then a proofreader and journalist, before building a career in the civil service, in the Department of Agriculture. A co-founder of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, he was its first president until his death, in Rio, on 29 September 1908.

In the catalogue 1

• NovelThe AlienistO alienistaJoaquim Maria Machado de Assis · 1881LiteraturePublic domain