Memorial de Ayres cover art

Memorial de Ayres

Pre-order free with Premium Plus
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Unlimited access to our all-you-can-listen catalogue of 15K+ audiobooks and podcasts.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Memorial de Ayres

By: Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Margaret Jull Costa - Translator - translator, Robin Patterson - Translator - translator
Pre-order free with Premium Plus

Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Pre-order for $28.27

Pre-order for $28.27

About this listen

From a maverick of 20th century fiction, a domestic drama set on the cusp of Brazil’s abolition of slavery.

Released just two months before his death in 1908, Memorial de Ayres was Machado de Assis’s final novel. Written in the form of a diary, it follows the day-to-day happenings of a retired diplomat, Counselor Ayres, during the waning years of the Brazilian empire.

Ayres lives a simple life: The most eventful parts of his week are lunch with his sister or a visit to their family cemetery. But a new love interest pushes Ayres from the confines of his quiet routine and into the warm, welcoming home of the Aguiars, an older couple who never had children. The Aguiar household is a center of merriment, a necessary outlet for the reclusive Ayres―and where Brazil’s well-to-do ponder the momentous changes afoot.

Marked by Machado’s sly humor and psychological subtlety―and set in a singularly transformative moment in Brazil’s history―Memorial de Ayres is a quietly prescient tale of personal and national legacy.©2026 Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (P)2026 Recorded Books
Family Life Genre Fiction Political World Literature
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.