Clarice Lispector

Writing to Save a Life: Clarice Lispector

Writing to Save a Life: Clarice Lispector

Readers assumed it was a pseudonym. The author, some said, had to be a man. Surely it couldn’t be as simple—as complex—as it seemed: in 1943, the twenty-three-year-old Ukrainian-born Clarice Lispector, daughter of Russian-Jewish émigrés living in exile in Brazil, published a debut novel that generated the kind of literary celebrity that no longer exists. Critics and readers established a new name for this literary wonder: the author became known as nothing less than “Hurricane Clarice.” 

Reading Around the World: Brazil

Reading Around the World: Brazil

In a few weeks, against all odds, Brazil will try to present itself as “the land of the future,” as Stefan Zweig deemed it after his 1936 visit. Today, and in the coming weeks, we look to Brazil's literature to try to understand this complex and complicated country.