- Lispector, Clarice
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▪ Brazilian authorborn Dec. 10, 1920?, Chechlnik, Ukraine, U.S.S.R.died Dec. 9, 1977, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.novelist and short-story writer, one of Brazil's most important literary figures and considered to be among the greatest women writers of the 20th century.Lispector's first novel, Perto do coração selvagem (1944; “Near to the Savage Heart”), published when she was 24 years old, won critical acclaim for its sensitive interpretation of adolescence. In her later works, such as A maçã no escuro (1961; The Apple in the Dark), A paixão segundo G.H. (1964; “The Passion According to G.H.”), and Água viva (1973; “Living Water”), her characters, alienated and searching for meaning in life, gradually gain a sense of awareness of themselves and accept their place in an arbitrary, yet eternal, universe.Lispector's finest prose is found in her short stories. Collections such as Laços de família (1960; Family Ties) and A legião estrangeira (1964; “The Foreign Legion”) focus on personal moments of revelation in the everyday lives of the protagonists and the lack of meaningful communication among individuals in a contemporary urban setting.Lispector achieved international fame with works that depict a highly personal, almost existentialist view of the human dilemma and are written in a prose style characterized by a simple vocabulary and elliptical sentence structure. In contrast to the regional or national social concerns expressed by many of her Brazilian contemporaries, her artistic vision transcends time and place; her characters, in elemental situations of crisis, are frequently female and only incidentally modern or Brazilian.Additional ReadingDiane E. Marting (ed.), Clarice Lispector: A Bio-Bibliography (1993); Marta Peixoto, Passionate Fictions: Gender, Narrative, and Violence in Clarice Lispector (1994); Earl E. Fitz, Clarice Lispector (1985), and Sexuality and Being in the Poststructuralist Universe of Clarice Lispector (2001).
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Universalium. 2010.
