The Underrepresented Modernism Project.

Clarice Lispector: Brazil’s Most Famous Author

“I do not know much. But there are certain advantages in not knowing. Like virgin territory, the mind is free of preconceptions. Everything I do not know forms the greater part of me: This is my largesse. And with this I understand everything. The things I do not know constitute my truth.”

~ Clarice Lispector

Clarice Lispecor, Ukrainian-born and Brazilian-raised, is an institution in Brazilian literature. Born in 1920, her parents fled Ukraine, then a part of Russia, when she was just two months old and she spent the majority of her life in Brazil.¹ Her writing has both captivated and confused those who have read it, leaving the reader with intrigue about the author herself. Her writing transcends the feminine experience in the Portuguese language, and is considered an artform. 

Lispector’s childhood was seemingly difficult, at the age of nine her mother died, and three years later, her two sisters and father moved to Rio de Janeiro. In an interview recently published by the New Yorker, she discusses how despite the family’s struggles, she was happy. “I was so happy that I would hide from myself the pain of seeing my mother like that. I was so alive!”² (Her mother was paralyzed). In the same interview, she says that there was nothing within her lineage to suggest that her and her sisters (who were also successful writers) would contain such literary prowess. She began to imagine stories before she could read, and at the age of nine was already writing plays. “When I was nine, I saw a play, and, inspired, on two pages of my notebook I wrote a three-act play, I don’t know how. I hid it behind the shelves because I was ashamed to write.”³ She would eventually go on to attend law school, but never went into the field, citing her disdain of paperwork as the reason. Lispector would then work at a newspaper and begin to write her novels. 

While she did not necessarily occupy the traditional modernist space, she was writing a a time when “boom novels” (essentially modernist novels that became popular in Latin America in the 60s and 70s⁴) were beginning to take off). Despite rejecting the title of feminist,⁵ much of her work explores the female experience. Her first and most famous novel, Near to the Wild Heart, showcases this perfectly. “(The main character’s) interior monologues focus on a specifically feminine knowledge which is born within the body, for she feels that her identity is lodged in the upper part of her brain, on her lips and especially on her tongue.⁶ Much of her work focuses on the sexual repression of women, mainly mothers, which may reflect her personal feelings towards her own life. She was a wife and a mother, but grew to resent the latter and divorced her husband, a Brazilian diplomat, in 1959. 

Lispector died in 1977 in Rio de Janeiro from cancer. During her life, she wrote six novels and seven short story collections, dealing with both the feminine experience, and exploring the multicultural identity of many of her characters. She is remembered as one of the most famous literary figures in Brazil, known for her lyrical writing and proactive subjects.

Bringing Clarice Lispector into Western Cannon:

It may seem strange to some who are familiar with the great Clarice Lispector’s work that she be included on this list. In full honesty, as I began researching I was weary of including her too. Someone who is so famous that in their home country they are known by one name: “Clarice.”  Thinking about this brought me back to the goal of the project, which has always been about expanding the Western Canon of authorship, to include those who do not fit in the typical white spaces. With this being said, I in no way want to remove Clarice’s Brazilian and Jewish identity from her work by including her here. That goes against the project pathos. Instead of forcing her to fit into the traditional boxes of Western culture, I instead attempt to expand what the Western idea sees as worthy of studying. To broaden and deepen the representation of writing that is known and talked about. That is my goal. 

As far as her place within the modernist canon, it makes complete sense to me that she be included. As stated above, she was writing at a time in Brazil when the modernist style of writing was becoming extremely popular. Not only that, but the subject matter of her novels (being that of multicultural identity and the feminine experience) is what defines the modernist movement.  Clarice is clearly an enigmatic figure in literature. Nearly every article I read mentioned her glamorous beauty and elusive writing style. Her writing was created from scratch, saying she had no one to tell her how to write or to give her advice.⁷ This may be what allowed to be so innovative with her writing, she wrote what she wanted, as she saw fit. She was trying to fit into a mold of what she thought a writer should be, she was simply herself.