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First Edition, first printing. Hard cover 8vo in black cloth, titles in silver to the spine, in an unclipped pictorial dust jacket, and mylar protector,165 pp. This newly published curated selection of twenty short stories features a new Introduction and Afterword. ** Fans of the still relatively unknown Ukrainian-Brazilian twentieth century Author will recognize and rejoice in this concentrated display of her unique prose style: in short vignettes or stories which are at once modern, impressionistic, with characters imperfect and unguarded, told in often succinct yet rich language which paradoxically often stops one in their tracks with insight into a character's motivations or other enigmatic statement. The titular story, for instance features a girl whose "frenemy" offers to lend her a coveted book from her father's bookstore. After repeatedly insisting she drops by to pick up the volume, only for it not to be available, the girl realizes she is being abused. She says, " I had already started to guess that she'd chosen me to suffer, sometimes I guess things. But, in actually guessing things, I sometimes accept them: as if whoever wants to make me suffer damn well needs me to." Once she has acquired the book, through the intervention of the nasty girl's mother, she is only partly content. The "covert joy" of possession is elusive because she somehow feels undeserving, an idea the author then briefly yet powerfully predicts will affect her relationship with a potential mate. These stories were not translated into English from Lispector's native Portuguese until nearly 40 years after her death in 1977. (AMJ)
Ref: CLAR 9752
$23.00