Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas (1881)

A dead man can afford to be indiscreet, and Brás uses that freedom to expose his own vanity along with the society that indulged it. Tiny chapters, interruptions and jokes make the reader part of the performance. Choose Flora Thomson-DeVeaux's 2020 translation for attentive notes on the Brazilian setting. The novel appeared in book form in 1881; its comic freedom is a useful challenge to any single story about nineteenth-century realism.