Machado de Assis' "Epitaph..." is one of Woody Allen's favourite books

The Guardian asked filmmaker Woody Allen what his favourite books are, and he declared his love for the classic of Brazilian literature Epitaph of a Small Winner (Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas), by Machado de Assis. Maybe that will get more readers for this masterpiece of irony!

I just got this in the mail one day. Some stranger in Brazil sent it and wrote, "You'll like this". Because it's a thin book, I read it. If it had been a thick book, I would have discarded it.

I was shocked by how charming and amusing it was. I couldn't believe he lived as long ago as he did. You would've thought he wrote it yesterday. It's so modern and so amusing. It's a very, very original piece of work. It rang a bell in me, in the same way that The Catcher in the Rye did. It was about subject matter that I liked and it was treated with great wit, great originality and no sentimentality.

The American edition has a preface by Susan Sontag!

Woody Allen's top five books 

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