This article examines the reception afforded Machado de Assis in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s, the years when Machado was first translated into English and available for reading in the United States and the years of the "Boom" period when he and his texts could have been (but were not) celebrated as part of the generally positive reception given to what was then being called "Latin American" (meaning Spanish American) literature in the United States. The article summarizes how reviewers interpreted Machado's three great novels as they appeared in their generally good English translations (Epitaph of a Small Winner, Dom Casmurro, and Philosopher or Dog?), and how they may have been misinterpreted, by the public and by the critical establishment. The essay also speculates about what might have happened if Machado had been read in the context of some of the great social transformations of the 1950s and 1960s, including questions of race and race relations, gender, class, and economic justice. The article concludes by considering whether the recognition of Brazilian literature in the United States of today would have been greatly enhanced if Machado had received a more emphatically positive reception during the 1950s and 1960s.
reader-response theory; influence; intertextuality; Latin American "boom"