Clarice Lispector's sensational prize-winning debut novel Near to the Wild Heart was published
when she was just twenty-three and earned her the name 'Hurricane Clarice'. It tells the story
of Joana from her wild creative childhood as the 'little egg' who writes poems for her
father through her marriage to the faithless Otávio and on to her decision to make her own way
in the world. As Joana endlessly mutable moves through different emotional states different
inner lives and different truths this impressionistic dreamlike and fiercely intelligent
novel asks if any of us ever really know who we are.Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian novelist
and short story writer. Her innovation in fiction brought her international renown. References
to her literary work pervade the music and literature of Brazil and Latin America. She was born
in the Ukraine in 1920 but in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Civil War the
family fled to Romania and eventually sailed to Brazil. In 1933 Clarice Lispector encountered
Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf which convinced her that she was meant to write. She published her
first novel Near to the Wildheart in 1943 when she was just twenty-three and the next year
was awarded the Graça Aranha Prize for the best first novel. Many felt she had given Brazillian
literature a unique voice in the larger context of Portuguese literature. After living
variously in Italy the UK Switzerland and the US in 1959 Lispector with her children
returned to Brazil where she wrote her most influential novels including The Passion According
to G.H. She died in 1977 shortly after the publication of her final novel The Hour of the
Star.
