Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas

Said to be one of Woody Allen’s favorite books, Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis is a satirical account of the life of the fictional Brás Cubas who, having died of pneumonia within the first few pages of the book, writes his own memoir post-death.

Below is the cover I designed in Adobe Illustrator and a sample from the text typeset in Adobe Indesign. For the front and back cover I hand drew the fonts to match the whimsical and playful nature of the narrative.

In the English translation, called Epitaph of a Small Winner, the back cover reads, “I am a deceased writer not in the sense of one who has written and is now deceased, but in the sense of one who had died and is now writing.”