"Machado offers the infectious pleasures of a 19th-century writer who is more modern than some of our so-called moderns.... The mystery of Machado is that he combines distanced irony with intimations of encroaching darkness, self-reflexive antics with soul."–Boston Globe
"Machado de Assis is Brazil's greatest novelist, and ranks high among the most appealing writers in the world.... Though he lived mainly in the 19th century, Machado possesses an almost postmodern sensibility–playful, ironic and tricky."–The Washington Post Book World