Hour of the Star

by Clarice Lispector and translated by Benjamin Moser
 
Charlie says “Drawing from her own childhood experience, Lispector’s final novel is the introspective story of a girl living in the slums of Rio, oblivious to her own suffering. Through the voice of an intrusive narrator (often interrupting to share his philosophy), ‘The Hour of the Star’ explores identity, existence, poverty, and the nature of writing itself. Lispector’s prose feels like magic, I haven’t stopped thinking about it for weeks!”
 
Living in the slums of Rio and eking out a living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola and her philandering rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly and unloved. Yet telling her story is the narrator Rodrigo S.M., who tries to direct Macabéa's fate but comes to realize that, for all her outward misery, she is inwardly free. Slyly subverting ideas of poverty, identity, love and the art of writing itself, Clarice Lispector's audacious last novel is a haunting portrayal of innocence in a bad world.
 
Format: Paperback