Lispector, Clarice, 1920-1977

In 1921, Clarice Lispector emigrated from Ukraine to Recife, Brazil when she was two months old. Her family moved to Rio de Janeiro when she was in her teens. While in law school in Rio, she began publishing her first journalistic work and short stories. Her debut novel, Near to the Wild Heart (1943), received national acclaim. While living abroad, Lispector wrote and published two novels, The Candelabrum (1946) and The Besieged City (1949). In Washington, D.C., she worked on her short story collection Family Ties (1960) and completed her long existential novel, The Apple in the Dark (1961). From the 1960s until her death in 1977, she wrote six novels, seven story collections, four children’s books, and many chronicles and became the outstanding Brazilian and Latin American woman writer of her generation.