Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector [Hardcover]

Clarice Lispector is one of the hidden geniuses of twentieth century literature, in the same league as Flann O'Brien, Borges and Pessoa. Now, finally, the plot has been thickened and the problem solved by Benjamin Moser's biography which is rich in detail and original research and filled with sympathy for what must remain hidden and what must be understood. He has written a great book about a Jewish heroine whose family lived through some of the worst episodes of the last century in Europe; he has given also a fascinating account of modern Brazil where Lispector's work is treasured and her genius recognized. --Colm Toibin

“A biography worthy of its great subject. . . . One of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers is finally revealed in all her  vibrant colors.”—Orhan Pamuk “ A smart, passionate portrait of a truly remarkable writer.” —Jonathan Franzen “ Clarice Lispector is one of the hidden geniuses of twentieth-century literature. . . .Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing. . . Benjamin Moser’s biography is a great book about a Jewish heroine, filled with sympathy for what must remain hidden and what must be understood.” —Colm Tóibín “ Everything about Clarice Lispector was unlikely: her great beauty, her early fame, her unique voice, her status as an icon to Brazilians. . . . In Benjamin Moser, she has found a gifted young biographer, social historian,and prose stylist who is able to take her elusive measure. This book is enthralling.” —Judith Thurman “ Clarice Lispector is one of the summits of Latin American literature. . . . Whether or not you know this delicate and powerful woman, this splendid biography deserves to be read. After finishing it, you will be in love with her.” —Guillermo Arriaga “ Glamorous, cultured, moody, Lispector is an emblematic twentieth-century artist who belongs in the same pantheon as Kafka and Joyce. Benjamin Moser has recreated all the psychological and cultural context needed to understand this great writer, and brought to life her essentially tragic nature in all its complexity.” —Edmund White

“That rare person who looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf,” Clarice Lispector is one of the most popular but least understood of Latin American writers. Now, after years of research on three continents, drawing on previously unknown manuscripts and dozens of interviews, Benjamin Moser demonstrates how Lispector’s development as a writer was directly connected to the story of her turbulent life. Born in the nightmarish landscape of post–World War I Ukraine, Clarice became, virtually from adolescence, a person whose beauty, genius, and eccentricity intrigued Brazil. Why This World tells how this precocious girl, through long exile abroad and difficult personal struggles, matured into a great writer, and asserts, for the first time, the deep roots in the Jewish mystical tradition that make her the true heir to Kafka as well as the unlikely author of “perhaps the greatest spiritual autobiography of the twentieth century.” From Chechelnik to Recife, from Naples and Bern to Washington and Rio de Janeiro, Why This World strips away the mythology surrounding this extraordinary figure and shows how Clarice Lispector transformed one woman’s struggles into a universally resonant art.

BENJAMIN MOSER is the New Books columnist of Harper's Magazine. He was born in Houston in 1976 and currently lives in the Netherlands. He is a contributor to the The New York Review of Books, and he has written for Conde Nast Traveler and Newsweek, as well as many other publications.