Near to the Wild Heart

This new translation of Clarice Lispector's sensational first book tells the story of a middle class woman's life from childhood through an unhappy marriage & its dissolution to transcendence. 

Near to the Wild Heart, published in Rio de Janeiro in 1943, introduced Brazil to what one writer called “Hurricane Clarice”: a twenty-three-year-old girl who wrote her first book in a tiny rented room & then baptized it with a title taken from Joyce: “He was alone, unheeded, near to the wild heart of life.” 

The book was an unprecedented sensation — the discovery of a genius. Narrative epiphanies & interior monologue frame the life of Joana, from her middle-class childhood through her unhappy marriage & its dissolution to transcendence, when she proclaims: “I shall arise as strong & comely as a young colt.”

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Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the 20th century, has been called “astounding” (Rachel Kushner), “a penetrating genius” (Donna Seaman, Booklist), & “one of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers” (Orhan Pamuk).

Alison Entrekin has translated a number of works by Brazilian & Portuguese authors, including City of God by Paulo Lins & Budapest by Chico Buarque.

Benjamin Moser is the editor & a translator of Lispector's works into English for New Directions.