Meet the Author
Clarice Lispector
Brazilian · 1920–1977 · Novelist and short story writer
A mystic of the everyday who found cosmic vertigo in a housewife's afternoon.
3 StoryBites Editions
Why read Clarice Lispector?
Lispector writes from deep inside the mind, chasing fleeting states of being that most fiction ignores. Her stories often turn on a single startling moment when a character glimpses the strangeness of simply existing. She's hypnotic, philosophical, and unlike anyone else you'll read.
A life in six dates
- 1920Born in Chechelnyk, Ukraine, to a Jewish family
- 1943Publishes her first novel, Near to the Wild Heart
- 1960Publishes the story collection Family Ties
- 1977Publishes The Hour of the Star and dies in Rio de Janeiro
The StoryBites Editions
Context that actually matters
Brazilian modernismShe pushed the country's literature toward radical inwardness.
The epiphanyHer stories hinge on sudden, disorienting moments of pure awareness.
Jewish immigrant rootsFleeing pogroms as an infant, she carried a lifelong sense of exile.
Influence
Echoes of Clarice Lispector run through Hélène Cixous, among many others.