Why this World

A Biography of Clarice Lispector
By Benjamin Moser

Born in 1920, in the nightmarish landscape of post-World War I Ukraine, her family driven to a distant country by the fearsome pogroms that killed her mother and ruined her father, Clarice Lispector triumphed over her origins to become, virtually from adolescence, a person whose beauty, genius, and eccentricity intrigued all of Brazil’s writers and artists.

Why This World tells how this precocious girl, through long exile abroad and difficult personal struggles, matured into a great writer and demonstrates, for the first time, the deep roots in the Jewish mystical tradition that make her the true heir to Kafka.

Against a sweeping historical panorama, from the Ukraine to Brazil, from Naples and Berne and Washington to Rio de Janeiro. Why This World is an essential introduction to the work of one of the twentieth century’s most important writers, indispensable for students of Jewish, Latin American, and women’s literature. Stripping away the mythology that has accreted around this extraordinary figure, it shows, above all, how Clarice Lispector transformed the personal struggles of a single woman into works of universal resonance.

As she said: ‘I am all of yourselves.’

'[Ben Moser's] energetically researched, finely argued biography will surely win Lispector the English-language readership she deserves.' - International Herald Tribune (Aug 22nd 2009)

'A biography worthy of its great subject... One of the twentieth century's most mysterious writers is finally revealed in all her vibrant colours.'

Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2006

'Benjamin Moser's enthralling biography... Moser was able to interview friends, relatives and survivors, people who knew Clarice Lispector and who witnessed many of the events in her life. His decision to offer his readers an instant, detailed education in Brazilian literature, history and culture is a wise one... I found the long digressions... gripping and informative... Some anecdotes are irresistible.' - Literary Review (February 2010)

'Moser's unabashed delight in his subject... confirms that Clarice Lispector continues to exert a strong appeal. The pivotal contribution of Moser's biography is to illuminate Lispector's roots in Eastern European Jewish culture... By establishing this background in persuasive detail, Moser is able to interpret Lispector's more impenetrable fictions as Jewish allegories... Highly illuminating.' - Times Literary Supplement (February 19th, 2010)