A Breath of Life

Name: A Breath of Life
Rating: 4.112 (334 reviews)
ISBN: 9780811220705

By Clarice Lispector & Johnny Lorenz &

Publisher Description

A mystical dialogue between a male author and his creation, this posthumous work has never before been translated, and is a book of particular beauty and strangeness.

A mystical dialogue between a male author (a thinly disguised Clarice Lispector) and his/her creation, a woman named Angela, this posthumous work has never before been translated. Lispector did not even live to see it published.

At her death, a mountain of fragments remained to be “structured” by Olga Borelli. These fragments form a dialogue between a god-like author who infuses the breath of life into his creation: the speaking, breathing, dying creation herself, Angela Pralini. The work’s almost occult appeal arises from the perception that if Angela dies, Clarice will have to die as well. And she did.

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A Breath of Life Reviews

4.0

Darumirg🍉

Created 2 days ago

Believable Multilayered Original Relatable Beautifully-written Dense Hard to follow Original Takes getting used to

zina

Created 10 days ago

Cassandra

Created 11 days ago

Nadine WM

Created 12 days ago

“As usual, reading Lispector’s work feels a little bit like a fever dream. It was beautiful, ugly too - and some of it went over my head, but the rest of it went straight into my soul - This is not a lament, it’s the cry of a bird of prey. An iridescent and restless bird. The kiss upon the dead face. I write as if to save somebody’s life. Probably my own. Life is a kind of madness that death makes. Long live the dead because we live in them. - Do I write or not?To know when to quit. Whether to give up. I wanted to write a book. But where are the words? I’m afraid to write. It’s so dangerous. Anyone who’s tried, knows. The danger of stirring up hidden things — and the world is not on the surface, it’s hidden in its roots submerged in the depths of the sea. In order to write I must place myself in the void. I’m a writer who fears the snares of words. - Anyone who reads me does so at his own risk. I don’t make literature: I simply live in the passing of time. The act of writing is the inevitable result of my being alive. - When I was a person, and not yet this rigorous being filled with words, I was more misunderstood by me. - Living demands such audacity. - What I’d give, however, not to have this mistaken desire to write. I feel like I’m being pushed. By whom? Write with no strings attached. Sometimes writing a single line is enough to save your own heart.”

ebeevie

Created 21 days ago

Beautifully-written

About Clarice Lispector

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

Other books by Clarice Lispector

Covert Joy

Clarice Lispector & Katrina Dodson &

$20.98

The Apple in the Dark

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser

$17.48

Too Much of Life

Clarice Lispector & Margaret Jull Costa

$26.23

An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

Clarice Lispector & Stefan Tobler &

$15.95

The Hour of the Star

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$13.95

The Chandelier

Clarice Lispector & Magdalena Edwards &

$16.95

The Besieged City

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$16.95

Complete Stories

Clarice Lispector & Katrina Dodson &

$19.23

The Foreign Legion

Clarice Lispector & Giovanni Pontiero

$16.95

Selected Cronicas

Clarice Lispector & Giovanni Pontiero

$16.95

Água Viva

Clarice Lispector & Stefan Tobler &

$14.95

Near to the Wild Heart

Clarice Lispector & Alison Entrekin &

$15.95

The Passion According to G.H.

Clarice Lispector & Caetano Veloso &

$15.95

The Hour of the Star

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$13.95

Johnny Lorenz

Johnny Lorenz, son of Brazilian immigrants to the United States, was born in 1972. He received his doctorate in English from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, and he is an associate professor at Montclair State University. In 2013, he was a finalist for Best Translated Book for his translation of A Breath of Life by Clarice Lispector (New Directions). His book of original poems, Education by Windows, was published in 2018 by Poets & Traitors Press; it includes his translations of the poet Mario Quintana, for which he received a Fulbright grant. He has published articles on Brazilian literature in journals such as Luso-Brazilian Review and Modern Fiction Studies. He is also the translator of Lispector's The Besieged City (New Directions).

Other books by Johnny Lorenz

Saving the Fire

Itamar Vieira Junior & Johnny Lorenz

$9.99

Crooked Plow

Itamar Vieira Junior & Johnny Lorenz

$9.99

The Besieged City

Clarice Lispector & Benjamin Moser &

$16.95

Benjamin Moser

General editor of the new translations of Clarice Lispector’s complete works at New Directions, BENJAMIN MOSER is the author of Why This World: The Biography of Clarice Lispector, and Sontag: Her Life and Work, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. His new book, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters, will be published in October.