In his books, in their most comic moments, he underlines the suffering by making us laugh.’ – Philip Roth ‘Machado de Assis is a great ironist, a tragic comedian. ‘If Borges is the writer who made Garcia Marquez possible then it is no exaggeration to say that Machado De Assis is the writer who made Borges possible.’ – Salman Rushdie ‘The greatest writer ever produced in Latin America.’ – Susan Sontag It is a delightful and hilarious novel – told by an entertainingly unreliable narrator – about the powers of jealousy and the deceitful persuasiveness of a mind in the grip of paranoia. Originally published in Brazil in 1900, Dom Casmurro is widely considered Machado de Assis’s greatest work and a classic of Brazilian realist literature. Are his suspicions actually based in reality or have his obsessive ruminations given way to deceptive illusions? What follows is a rich and sardonic narrative, as Bento attempts to discern his son’s paternity.
But, once wed, Bento becomes increasingly convinced that Capitú is having a torrid affair, that his son is not his own, and that his best friend has cuckolded him. He even breaks a promise his devout mother made to God – that he become a priest – in order to marry her. Translated from the Portuguese by Helen Caldwellīento Santiago is madly in love with his neighbour, Capitú.
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