Birth and adolescence Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was born on 21 June 1839 in
Rio de Janeiro, then capital of the
Empire of Brazil. His parents were Francisco José de Assis, a wall painter, the son of
freed slaves, and Maria Leopoldina da Câmara Machado, a Portuguese washerwoman from the
Azores. He was born in Livramento country house, owned by
Dona Maria José de Mendonça Barroso Pereira, widow of senator Bento Barroso Pereira, who protected his parents and allowed them to live with her.
Dona Maria José became Joaquim's godmother; her brother-in-law, commendator Joaquim Alberto de Sousa da Silveira, was his godfather, and both were paid homage by giving their names to the baby. Machado had a sister who died young. Joaquim studied in a public school, but was not a good student. While helping to serve the masses, he met Father Silveira Sarmento, who became his Latin teacher and also a good friend. When Joaquim was ten years old, his mother died, and his father took him along as he moved to
São Cristóvão. Francisco de Assis met Maria Inês da Silva, and they married in 1854. Joaquim had classes in a school for girls only, thanks to his stepmother who worked there making candies. At night he learned French with an immigrant baker. In his adolescence, he met
Francisco de Paula Brito, who owned a bookstore, a newspaper and typography. On 12 January 1855, Francisco de Paula published the poem
Ela ("Her") written by Joaquim, then 15 years old, in the newspaper
Marmota Fluminense. In the following year, he was hired as typographer's apprentice in the
Imprensa Oficial (the Official Press, charged with the publication of Government measures), where he was encouraged as a writer by
Manuel Antônio de Almeida, the newspaper's director and also a novelist. There he also met
Francisco Otaviano, journalist and later liberal senator, and
Quintino Bocaiuva, who decades later would become known for his role as a republican orator.
Early career and education Francisco Otaviano hired Machado to work on the newspaper
Correio Mercantil as a proofreader in 1858. He continued to write for the
Marmota Fluminense and also for several other newspapers, but he did not earn much and had a humble life. As he did not live with his father anymore, it was common for him to eat only once a day for lack of money. Around this time, he became a friend of the writer and liberal politician
José de Alencar, who taught him English. From
English literature, he was influenced by
Laurence Sterne,
William Shakespeare,
Lord Byron and
Jonathan Swift. He learned German years later and in his old age, Greek. He was invited by Bocaiúva to work at his newspaper
Diário do Rio de Janeiro in 1860. Machado had a passion for theater and wrote several plays for a short time; his friend Bocaiúva concluded: "Your works are meant to be read and not played." He gained some notability and began to sign his writings as J. M. Machado de Assis, the way he would be known for posterity: Machado de Assis. He established himself in advanced Liberal Party circles by taking stands in defense of religious freedom and
Ernest Renan's controversial
Life of Jesus while attacking the venality of the clergy. His father, Francisco de Assis, died in 1864. Machado learned of his father's death through acquaintances. He dedicated his compilation of poems called "
Crisálidas" to his father: "To the Memory of Francisco José de Assis and Maria Leopoldina Machado de Assis, my Parents." With the Liberal Party's ascension to power at that time, Machado thought he might receive a patronage position that would help him improve his life. To his surprise, aid came from the Emperor
Dom Pedro II, who hired him as director-assistant in the
Diário Oficial in 1867, and knighted him as an honor. In 1888 Machado was made an officer of the
Order of the Rose.
Marriage and family In 1868 Machado met the Portuguese Carolina Augusta Xavier de Novais, five years older than he was. She was the sister of his colleague Faustino Xavier de Novais, for whom he worked on the magazine
O Futuro. Machado had a stammer and was extremely shy, short and lean. He was also very intelligent and well-learned. He married Carolina on 12 November 1869; although her parents, Miguel and Adelaide, and her siblings disapproved because Machado was of African descent and she was a white woman. They had no children.
Literature Machado managed to rise in his bureaucratic career, first in the Agriculture Department. Three years later, he became the head of a section in it. He published two poetry books:
Falenas, in 1870, and
Americanas, in 1875. Their weak reception made him explore other literary genres. He wrote five
romantic novels:
Ressurreição,
A Mão e a Luva,
Helena and
Iaiá Garcia. The books were a success with the public, but literary critics considered them mediocre. Machado suffered repeated attacks of
epilepsy, apparently related to the hearing of the death of his old friend José de Alencar. He was left
melancholic, pessimistic and fixed on death. His next book, marked by "a skeptical and
realistic tone":
Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, also translated as
Epitaph of a Small Winner), is widely considered a masterpiece. By the end of the 1880s, Machado had gained wide renown as a writer. Although he was opposed to slavery, he never spoke against it in public. He avoided discussing politics. He was criticized by the
abolitionist José do Patrocínio and by the writer
Lima Barreto for staying away from politics, especially the cause of abolition. He was also criticized by them for having married a white woman. Machado was caught by surprise with the monarchy overthrown on 15 November 1889. Machado had no sympathy towards
republicanism, as he considered himself a liberal
monarchist and venerated Pedro II, whom he perceived as "a humble, honest, well-learned and patriotic man, who knew how to make a chair of his throne [for his simplicity], without diminishing its greatness and respect." When a commission went to the public office where he worked to remove the picture of the former emperor, the shy Machado defied them: "The picture got in here by an order and it shall leave only by another order." The birth of the Brazilian republic made Machado become more critical and an observer of the Brazilian society of his time. From then on, he wrote "not only the greatest novels of his time, but the greatest of all time of Brazilian literature." Works such as
Quincas Borba (Philosopher or Dog?) (1891),
Dom Casmurro (1899),
Esaú e Jacó (1904) and
Memorial de Aires (1908), considered masterpieces, were successes with both critics and the public. In 1893 he published "A Missa do Galo" ("Midnight Mass"), considered his greatest short story.
Later years Machado de Assis, along with fellow monarchists such as
Joaquim Nabuco,
Manuel de Oliveira Lima,
Afonso Celso, Viscount of Ouro Preto and
Alfredo d'Escragnolle Taunay, and other writers and intellectuals, founded the
Brazilian Academy of Letters. He was its first president, from 1897 to 1908, when he died. For many years, he requested that the government grant a proper headquarters to the Academy, which he managed to obtain in 1905. In 1902 he was transferred to the accountancy's directing board of the
Ministry of Industry. His wife Carolina Novais died on 20 October 1904, after 35 years of a "perfect married life". Feeling depressed and lonely, Machado died on 29 September 1908. ==Narrative style==