Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) has us mesmerised. We have been wrangling with her short novels and are totally bewitched. Born in the Ukraine and exiled to Brazil, her life story is expansive and deeply thoughtful. A true Carioca and a woman of outstanding substance. She was incredibly beautiful and insightful, her prose is captivating and complicated. We admire her style. 
On life : 'Here is a moment of extravagant beauty: I drink it liquid from the shells of my hands and almost all of it runs sparkling through my fingers: but beauty is like that, it is a fraction of a second, quickness of a flash and then immediately it escapes.' A Breath of Life, Clarice Lispector
Family: "How does it feel to have a daughter?
- At times it's like holding a warm egg in my hand" Near to the Wild Heart, Clarice Lispector
And Love: 'Sometimes she rebelled distantly: life is long.... She feared the days, one after another, without surprises, of pure devotion to a man. To a man who would freely use all of his wife's forces for his own bonfire, in a serene, unconscious sacrifice of everything that wasn't his own personality.' Near to the Wild Heart, Clarice Lispector
Not for the faint hearted, her introspective narrative can really make you question if you're crazy or just the world around you is.
By Abbie Miranda, December 2016.
