A breath of life

Clarice Lispector's final book, A Breath of Life is an inquiry into the meaning of existence and the act of writing in freedom. Employing an enchanting device, the writer brings into dialogue an Author and his character, the indefinable and elusive Ângela Pralini, whom we already know from another book. A man and a woman, both writers, who contemplate and question each other in the reflection of one another. As they meditate on their creative crises and the role reserved for them by the world outside the pages, they end up instilling doubt in the reader. Who is the creator and who is the creature? Which of them is closer to Clarice herself? Which thread do we choose to follow, fiction, the fictional idea, or the unique universe of a unique writer?

Clarice Lispector worked on this book during the last years of her life, revealing the intense dialogue that is also established between the writer and her literary creation. Published posthumously, A Breath of Life illuminates the pulse of a writing that has no equal in the Portuguese language, and remains as the legacy of a disruptive, timeless, and always admirable literary project.

«A wandering book, concrete and minute, abstract and inexpressible, an intelligence of the senses and sensations, even more so than of thought. It thus becomes a constant surprise, demand, and audacity […]. More than an unfinished and posthumous book, A Breath of Life reminds us of our common posthumous and unfinished condition.»
Pedro Mexia