At the time of her death in 1977, Clarice Lispector was widely viewed not only as Brazil's leading writer but as one of the most extraordinary writers of narratives ever to emerge from Latin America. A brilliantly original stylist whose lyrically...

In the following essay, a revised version of an article originally published in Chasqui: Revista de Literatura Latinoamericana in 1978, Lindstrom argues that while Lispector's philosophical debt is often ascribed to the male French existentialists, her emphasis on women's diminished existential possibilities in the stories "Amor, " "Devaneio e embriaguez duma rapariga, " and "Preciosidade" shows a greater affinity with the theories of feminist existen...

In the following excerpt, Sáenz de Tejada analyzes stories from Lispector's collections A bela e a fera, A legião estrangeira, Felicidade clandestina, and Onde estivestes de noite? and claims that even in her earliest work Lispector considers that androgyny is the natural state of the human being, as her female and male characters resist the gender roles expected of them by patriarchal society and seek self-awareness and authenticity.

In the following essay, Vieira examines the textual and thematic structure of A via crucis do corpo, asserting that the main theme of this collection of sexually explicit tales is the sufferings of the female with regard to the body. Vieira goes on to argue that, with these stories, Lispector reaches out to a wider readership but still addresses the issues of her earlier stories: self-determination, sexual independence, authenticy, absurdity, male/female relationships, bad faith, oppression, and rebellion....