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.
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review.
One in a series of four new translations, this is the first time this posthumous book from one of Brazil's most renowned writers has been translated into English. The novel is a lyrical and expertly rendered schizoid duet comprising the exchanges between the "Author" (a male approximation of Lispector) and Angela Pralini, a textual manifestation of his "dark" "interior dialogue" whom he loves yet simultaneously wants to destroy. Because the Author cannot clearly define Angela, or separate her from himself-much like Lispector (Água Viva) cannot separate herself from the Author-the novel does not progress in a traditional sense. Rather, the Author admits that "What this book is missing is a bang. A scandal-" something to put Angela on a trajectory other than that of her creator. As the two wrestle with the conditions of their relationship, they each offer transcendent insights into the writing process, the artifice of character creation, the morbid, and the absurd, as when the Author laments being "objectified" as a writer, and Angela asks entreatingly, "But does anyone hear me?" While the innovative nature of the work will likely appeal to fans of Beckett, Lispector's intoxicating prose makes this experimental dialogue special.
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SFGate
Both dazzling and difficult.
The Times Literary Supplement
Her images dazzle even when her meaning is most obscure, and when she is writing of what she despises she is lucidity itself.
The Coffin Factory
Reading Lispector is an intellectual adventure... Serious writing is a dangerous business, and unlike any other author, Lispector is willing to embrace the danger and come out the other side of the void.
Full Stop
The raw, demanding pace and the dialogic form of A Breath of Life provoke an urgent meditation on life, self, and time. In fact, reading this novel may be a form of meditation.”
The L Magazine
One of 20th-century Brazil’s most intriguing and mystifying writers.
Orhan Pamuk
One of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers in all her vibrant colors.
San Francisco Chronicle
Both dazzling and difficult.
Benjamin Moser - San Francisco Chronicle
I had a sort of missionary urge with her...but I started thinking, even when I was 19: How can I help this person reach the prominence she deserves?
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