"THE SUPREME BLACK LITERARY ARTIST" A RACIALIZED MACHADO DE ASSIS IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD

Abstract

David Damrosch argues that world literature is the locus of negotiation between a source and a host culture, with works increasingly being favored for exhibiting identities based on racial, ethnic, or cultural differences. We examine racial perspectives on Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908) by English-language critics, largely in North America, from the late twentieth century to the present. In the twentieth century, Machado was successful among academics and critics but not the general public. In the twenty-first century, re-translations of his works have widened his visibility among the general English-language readership. His recent critical reception also reveals greater interest in his racial background. As a multiracial individual of partial African descent and the grandson of freed slaves, Machado has been situated in an African diasporic or Black literary canon as he is read from a racial perspective by North American critics.