Book to book

Near to the Wild Heart

“A novel that was needed.” This was how the literary critic Antonio Candido referred to the young Clarice Lispector’s debut novel of 1943.

  • Novels
  • 1943

The Chandelier

Clarice Lispector’s second novel was written while the author lived in Europe and completed in Naples at the end of World War II.

  • Novels
  • 1946

The Besieged City

The novel takes place in the 1920s, in the unattractive suburb of São Geraldo, home of the young Lucrécia Neves, characterized by the essential conflict between country and city.

  • Novels
  • 1948

Family Ties

Exhibiting absolute mastery of this brief narrative form, the book of 13 short stories, some of them published previously in the press, guaranteed the writer the Prêmio Jabuti literary award in 1961.

  • Short stories
  • 1960

The Apple in the Dark

“It’s the best. I can't define it… I can only say that it's much more developed than the previous ones,” declares Clarice Lispector about this work.

  • Novels
  • 1961

The Foreign Legion

The book deconstructs clichés about friendship, solidarity, old age, discusses false values of the bourgeois family, and investigates the connection with the other, the different.

  • Short stories
  • 1964

The Passion According to G.H.

With a meticulous operation of writing, Clarice extracts the maximum from a banal plot and accomplishes what for many will be her greatest literary endeavor.

  • Novels
  • 1964

The Mystery of the Thinking Rabbit

Written in the 1950s, it was the first work for children. It is born of a question from her son, Paulo: “Why do you only write books for adults?”

  • Children's literature
  • 1967

The Woman Who Killed the Fish

Harmony with the universe of children makes Clarice’s production for children innovative. Animals are supports for human emotions and appear here in micronarratives.

  • Children's literature
  • 1968

An Apprenticeship or the Book of Delights

Loreley, nicknamed Lóri, leaves Campos to work as an elementary school teacher in Rio de Janeiro. Here she falls in love with Ulysses, professor of philosophy.

  • Novels
  • 1969

Covert Joy

Clarice’s indisputable talent appears in these brief and tense stories that communicate what she sees in the intervals of the world: the sea, a book, a kiss.

  • Short stories
  • 1971

Água Viva

The manuscript “Screaming Object”, developed out of chronicles, was never published. Clarice transformed it into Água Viva, in which she radicalizes innovative writing processes.

  • Novels
  • 1973

The Via Crucis of the Body

Released in 1974, the book was controversial. Some critics reacted negatively to the work, written to order and with the intention of being erotic.

  • Short stories
  • 1974

Laura’s Intimate Life

Her third work for children, the plot tells of the adventures of the protagonist, Laura, a hen.

  • Children's literature
  • 1974

Where You Were at Night

The work explores dimensions of delirium, magic, and the oneiric in hybrid narratives that escape classification.

  • Short stories
  • 1974

The Hour of the Star

The last book she published, it tells two stories: that of the narrator, Rodrigo S. M. and of Macabéa, a typist from Alagoas who lives in Rio de Janeiro.

  • Novella
  • 1977

Not to Forget

It can’t be called a book of crônicas because it’s more than that. There are 108 small, medium and, here and there, long texts; there are stories, chronicles, aphorisms.

  • Chronicles
  • 1978

Almost True

The usual opening of narrative is twisted right away: “Once upon a time… Once upon a time: I!”. This ‘I’ is that of the dog Ulysses, whose barks Clarice translates.

  • Children's literature
  • 1978

A Breath of Life

Written during three years and at the same time as The Hour of the Star, it was organized by Olga Borelli and published posthumously.

  • Novels
  • 1978

Beauty and the Beast

Released posthumously, it brings together six writings from 1940-41 and two from 1977, shortly before the death of the author, that talk about meaning of life, loneliness, and the female condition.

  • Short stories
  • 1979

Discovering the World

468 chronicles published originally in Jornal do Brasil between 1967 and 1973, it addresses themes under the impact of those who observe the world for the first time – the discovery.

  • Chronicles
  • 1984

How the Stars Were Born

Very different from the four previous works for children, here are twelve Brazilian legends in narratives re-elaborated by the writer.

  • Children's literature
  • 1987