Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839тАУ1908) is widely considered one of the most innovative Latin American authors and is best known for his two masterpiece novels, Mem├│rias P├│stumas de Bras Cubas and Dom Casmurro. He was also the founding president of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (1896), a position he held throughout the rest of his life.
Karen C. Sherwood Sotelino (BA Stanford; MA, PhD UC Santa Cruz), born in San Francisco, California, has translated novels by Machado de Assis, Raduan Nassar and Raul Brand├гo. She has taught English, Portuguese and translation at Associa├з├гo Alumni, S├гo Paulo, and Stanford