Clarice Lispector: When the Silence Outside Hides a World Within

On December 9, 1977, Brazil said farewell to Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), a woman who did not merely write books: she changed the way we feel the Portuguese language.

Clarice is one of those authors who provoke enchantment and fear at the same time. I have heard it from many people: "I am afraid to read Clarice. They say she is difficult, that you cannot understand her."

If you have felt that, be calm. The secret of Clarice is not to "understand" with the head. It is to feel. Clarice does not explain herself; Clarice is lived through.

Let us go back a little in time. Imagine a girl born in what is today Ukraine, amid chaos, fleeing persecution against Jews, who reaches Brazil still an infant. She grows up in Recife, under that strong sun, and declares herself, for the rest of her life, a Pernambucan. For Clarice, her language was Portuguese, and that was that.

She grows up, becomes a woman of striking presence — she seemed almost a film actress — studies law, works as a journalist, marries a diplomat, lives in Europe and in the United States… but inside she carried a volcano.

While much of the Brazilian literature of the period — above all the so-called Generation of 1930 — was concerned with showing the drought, the hunger, the social question, all of it of the greatest importance, Clarice goes the opposite way. She looks inward.

We tend to place her in the Generation of 1945, the third phase of Brazilian Modernism, but in truth she occupies a place very much her own in our literature.

In Clarice's books, often "nothing happens" on the outside. No one slays a dragon, no one conquers an empire. Sometimes the story is about a woman sitting on a streetcar, or a housewife looking at a cockroach in the wardrobe. And that is precisely where the magic lies.

One of the key words for understanding Clarice is epiphany — that sudden moment of revelation. You know when you are doing something ordinary, washing dishes, riding a bus, and suddenly something falls into place about life, about God, about solitude? That is Clarice. She takes the everyday and tears the veil of reality. It is not the external action that matters, but what happens inside the soul.

Here is a suggestion from the Brazilian Academy of History and Literature for anyone who wishes to venture into her work.

Begin with Family Ties (Laços de família), stories in which Clarice shows that behind family routine there are tensions, discoveries, and moments of revelation.

Then, if you wish to return to the beginning, read Near to the Wild Heart (Perto do coração selvagem), the author's first novel, published when she was still very young.

And to close a first passage through her work, it is impossible not to speak of The Hour of the Star (A hora da estrela), her last novel, published in the year of her death, which tells the story of Macabéa, a young woman from the Northeast almost invisible to the world. There, side by side, are social poverty and the existential gaze so much her own.

The invitation of the Academy is simple: pick up a book of hers today. Read even a single page. And come to know Clarice.

Brazilian Academy of History and Literature.

Translated from the Portuguese original published by the Academia Brasileira de História e Literatura.