Book description
A meditation on the nature of life and time, Agua Viva (1973) shows Lispector discovering a new means of writing about herself, more deeply transforming her individual experience into a universal poetry. In a body of work as emotionally powerful, formally innovative, and philosophically profound as Clarice Lispector's, Agua Viva…
Why read it?
1 author picked Agua Viva as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Last year, I went on a run where I read nothing but Clarice Lispector, completely surrendering to her experimental spellcasting and literary bewitchment. Ukrainian-born and Brazilian-raised, the iconoclastic Lispector was unmistakably her own as a writer, searching for "the word that has its light."
This brings me to my favorite of the Lispector books that I devoured: Água Viva. It is a happy birthday dirge and confessional, a sustained incantation punctuated by necessary silences, a chamber music concert performed in the bluest hours by a splintered soloist.
Or, in the words of Lispector herself, "This isn't a…
If you love Agua Viva...
Minor Sketches and Reveries
These introspective tales feature animals, allegories and melodramas of everyday life. At the center of the stories are tiny creatures (a sparrow, earthworm or paperclip) struggling to make sense of larger mysterious forces. Human protagonists are equally perplexed by ordinary events – like searching for a lost key, watching late…
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