Epitaph of a Small Winner, Paperback/Machado de Assis

In these memoirs, Braz Cubas, a wealthy nineteenth-century Brazilian, examines (from beyond the grave) his rather undistinguished life in 160 short chapters that are filled with philosophical digressions and exuberant insights. A clear forerunner of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges, Epitaph for a Small Winner , first published in 1880, is one of the wittiest self-portraits in literary history as well as ``one of the masterpieces of Brazilian literature`` (Salman Rushdie).