Top Picks: Clarice Lispector

Born on December 10, 1920 and passing away on December 9, 1977, Lispector’s life held a poignant symmetry. She departed just one day shy of her 57th birthday, almost as if she deliberately resisted the completion of a perfect circle. This peculiar defiance toward closure reflects her spirit, as she was known for rejecting tidy literary classifications in her writing. Throughout her work, she eludes neat boundaries, evokes emotions that escape easy articulation and blurs the lines between reality and fiction. 

Lispector, who grew up in Brazil after fleeing war in Ukraine as a child, is often linked to the genre of magical realism, though her novels never quite adhere to its conventions. Like other writers in this tradition, she weaves the mundane with the miraculous and the familiar with the uncanny into her world building. However, unlike some of her peers, Lispector's exploration of the magical goes far beyond—or, more accurately, within—external events. Instead, she emphasizes the deeply internalized experiences of her characters and the ineffable forces that shape them.

Described by literary critics as “Hurricane Clarice, opens a new window,” “Madame of the Void, opens a new window,” the “Sphinx of Rio de Janeiro, opens a new window” and someone “who looked like Marlene Dietrich but wrote like Virginia Woolf, opens a new window,” Lispector's allure is as elusive and layered as the subjects she explores. Some even went as far as to accuse her of being a witch. Whatever the case, her work pushes the limits of the visible world, questioning not just what’s seen, but what is felt, imagined and buried within a person. For many, her writing is not just literature—it feels like a kind of sorcery, summoning what lies beyond language and is hidden in the rhythms of daily existence. Ultimately, Lispector’s words invite readers to pause, re-read (not once or twice, but a third or fourth time) and, in doing so, transform.

For newcomers to Lispector's work or long-time admirers, these five books will showcase the range of her themes and techniques and guide you to the mystical core of her literary world. 

Published when Lispector was just 23, Near to the Wild Heart's title echoes a line, opens a new window from James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Her debut novel follows Joana, a young woman whose emotional and psychological journey is explored through a stream-of-consciousness style that mirrors the frenzy of someone learning. As Joana struggles to understand herself, Lispector places the reader in the center of her intensely delicate thoughts. Every sentence connects to Joana’s wild heart, which yearns to break free from inner turmoil, social pressures and the limitations of language.

If Near to the Wild Heart sheds light on the complexities of youth and self-expression, The Passion According to G.H dives into the dark corners of the human condition. The novel begins with a simple encounter: G.H., a sculptor, sees a cockroach in her maid’s room. For the rest of this sparse but dense novel, G.H. narrates the psychological and spiritual unraveling she has after a moment of profound disgust. 

The Hour of the Star, Lispector's final novel, follows Macabéa, a typist living in Rio de Janeiro. This brief story explores the tragic humor and strange freedom of her existence, which is marked by insignificance, loneliness, poverty and a sense of oblivion. The narrator, Rodrigo S.M., describes himself as both the author of and a character in Macabéa's life. He often breaks the fourth wall, reflecting on his role in telling her story and questioning whether it’s ethical for him to speak for a woman who would otherwise be forgotten. Through Rodrigo's self-aware but unreliable narration, the invisible Macabéa becomes the star of her own life. In turn, Lispector recasts the acts of writing and reading as acts of redemption and resurrection.

For many readers, Água Viva is often Lispector’s most abstract and challenging book. Told through the inner monologue of a nameless female artist, the book floats through her ideas about time, art, and life itself. Some readers believe it’s just a thinly veiled autobiography that's made up of Lispector’s unmediated thoughts rather than life events. Whether it’s reality or fiction, it is an encounter with a woman’s innermost language, resembling a piece of music more than a narrative. Its meaning arises not from plot or linear progression, but from the rhythm and energy of the words. Lispector’s use of unconventional grammar amplifies this fluidity. Sentences fragment, stretch, and sometimes lack clear punctuation, encouraging readers to experience language as a living force that is always in motion. In fact, “água viva”—which translates to “living water” or, as it’s casually understood in Brazil, “jellyfish”—captures the novel’s essence: a sentient form without a fixed structure. 

For readers looking to explore Lispector’s more accessible, yet still poetic and philosophical side, Too Much of Life is a great collection of her non-fiction work. “Crônicas,” which is Portuguese for “newspaper columns,” were Lispector's vehicle for conveying real moments with emotional and existential weight. These vignettes range from her personal memories to reflections on topics like art and solitude. Whether it’s through a few pages or just a few sentences, Lispector’s crônicas share the kinds of fleeting and simple moments that define our lives and turn them into something transcendent.