On December 10, the Moreira Salles Institute presents the fourth edition of Clarice’s Hour, an event that marks Clarice Lispector’s birthday (1920-1977).
As part of the commemoration, IMS has produced a video interview with Paulo Gurgel Valente, son of the writer, who spoke with Eucanaã Ferraz and Elizama Almeida and recalls, for example, the personalities who frequented his home and the first book that he read by his mother.
Clarice Lispector’s birthday was last Sunday, December 10, but the “Clarice’s Hour” celebrations continue in Brazil and abroad.
Working on a manual printer, João Cabral invites Clarice to debut “The Seamless Book,” his small publisher.
The writer Ana Maria Machado had an unusual and emotional episode with Clarice Lispector. This happened in 1975. After having read an article by Ana Maria, published that very day in the Jornal do Brasil, about the birthday of the writer Roland Barthes, Clarice, who did not know her personally, insistently asked her for help to organize what in two years would be the book The Hour of the Star.
Clarice Lispector spent her childhood in Recife, but at the age of 15 she moved with her father and two sisters to Rio de Janeiro. It was in the then capital of Brazil that the writer lived her youth and early adult life: she completed high school, graduated from law school, had her first professional experiences in the press, got married, and in 1943, released her first book Near to the Wild Heart.
In the book Rio de Clarice, the author's pleasure in wandering the streets, forests, parks, and beaches of Rio de Janeiro, where she arrived as a 15-year-old, is evident.
Clarice’s connection with politics does not take place on the surface of public life, or in the texts that directly address the issue. This is due to the writer’s understanding of the rift between art and politics, which is addressed in two related texts, “Literature and Justice” and “What I Would Like to Have Been,” in which she observes with disconcerting lucidity the uselessness of her literature as a political instrument.
