Machado de Assis, Blackness, and the Americas - Hardcoverby Vanessa K. Vald? s (Editor), Earl E. Fitz (Editor) Considered a genius in his own lifetime, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839 1908) is Brazil's most canonized writer. Yet, he remains a contested and even enigmatic figure to readers in Brazil and abroad, his relative silence on slavery leaving him vulnerable to charges of aspirations to whiteness. Machado de Assis, Blackness, and the Americas reconsiders this issue by exploring how his prose