The Hour of the Star [Paperback]

'Macabea is one of the great antiheroines of modern fiction... the literary discovery of the decade.' - Vogue'Clarice Lispector is a Brazilian writer, and for me she is thegreatest writer of the twentieth century. I rank her with Kafka...her work will become a model of "feminine writing".' - Helene Cixous'Her recurring theme is the fragility of peace and order, and the swarming of temptations in unlikely places. She would have understood (and perhaps did) Brecht's phrase about the terrible temptation of goodness'. - Arthur Marwick, London Review of Books

Clarice Lispector died of cancer at the age of fifty-six on 9th December 1977. "The Hour of the Star" was published that same year and acclaimed by the critics as 'a regional allegory' of extraordinary awareness and insight. Lispector herself defined "The Hour of the Star" as a book 'made without words...a mute photograph...a silence...a question'. The tale of Macabea can be read at different levels and lends itself to various interpretations. The book's subtle interplay of fiction and philosophy sums up Lispector's unique talent as a writer and her lasting influence on contemporary Brazilian writing.

Clarice Lispector was born in the Ukraine in 1925, and was brought up in Receife, Brazil and then Rio de Janeiro. After graduating from the Faculty of Law she married and then published her first novel, Near to the Wild Heart. Her husband's diplomatic career took them to Europe and to the United States. Lispector's gifts as a Portuguese language writer were early recognised in The Hour of the Star, Family Ties (stories), The Foreign Legion (miscellany) and her journalistic essays Discovering the World. She died of cancer in 1977.