Brazilian · 1839–1908
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Portuguese language and one of the most important novelists of the nineteenth century. His major works include The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Dom Casmurro, and Quincas Borba. A mixed-race writer who rose from poverty to become the founding president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, he anticipated literary modernism by decades.