After Clarice: Reading Lispector’s Legacy in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Adriana X. Jacobs and Claire Williams (review)

Reviewed by: After Clarice: Reading Lispector's Legacy in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Adriana X. Jacobs and Claire Williams Paulo de Medeiros After Clarice: Reading Lispector's Legacy in the Twenty-First Century. Ed. by Adriana X. Jacobs and Claire Williams. Cambridge: Legenda. 2022. xvii+ 446 pp. £85. ISBN 978–1–781888–59–9. Hefty tomes such as After Clarice are becoming ever rarer; the increasingly frenetic pace of life and a general sense of overwork tend to favour shorter, more digestible publications. This expansive collection of essays on the life and works of Clarice Lispector is a welcome exception. Readers wishing to know just a little more about Lispector, or any of her works, as well as those curious to learn more about a particular intricacy regarding the critical reception of her work, are equally well served. Others, of course, might opt to read the book cover to cover. If they do, they will receive a comprehensive education on one of the most fascinating writers of the twentieth century. The book has its origins in a conference the editors organized in Oxford in November 2017, but is far more than the proceedings. It has been smartly organized into seven distinct parts: 'Maps and Places'; 'Archetypes and Manuscripts'; 'Theorizing Clarice'; 'Writing and Rewriting'; 'The Posthuman'; 'Transmediality and Performance'; and 'Translating Clarice'. The authors of the twenty-eight chapters include many prominent Lispector scholars and critics such as Nádia Battella Gotlib, Carlos Mendes de Sousa, Marta Peixoto, and even the late Giovanni Pontiero, here present with a posthumous text, his hitherto unpublished 'Afterword' to The Besieged City. The editors, who provide a detailed Introduction, also contribute a chapter each: 'Clarice Hebraica' and 'Rewriting Clarice Lispector in the Digital Age'. Even though much has been published on Lispector in the past two decades, this volume can be seen as an extended, updated, continuation of Closer to the Wild Heart: Essays on Clarice Lispector, edited by Cláudia Pazos-Alonso and Claire Williams (Oxford: Legenda, 2002). The older publication has stood the test of time, and one suspects this latest offering will do equally well. A unique selling point is the direct way in which the editors promise from the outset to bring together 'a deliberately diverse and eclectic range of scholarly articles, works of fiction and poetry, personal essays and archival material in order to reassess how Lispector's wide-ranging œuvre is read today' (p. 1). Whereas most collections of essays often struggle to achieve coherence, this one is coherent precisely by not seeking to be so. Readers ought to be prepared to engage with deliberately deeply personal essays. The chapter on 'Clarice Lispector and World Literature: Is The Hour of the Star a Global Novel?' by prominent Brazilianist Nelson Vieira is a delightful and quirky essay built on a lifetime's experience. Its question is one of the most pressing at the moment given not only the editors' aim to take stock of how Lispector's work is being read today, but also the rise in interest in World Literature and related issues of cultural capital. Engaging with this and virtually all of the chapters affords the reader a privileged glimpse into a fine critical mind at work. Vieira's essay is as eclectic as the editors envisioned the collection. Rather than offering a survey of the prominent figures of World Literature (e.g. Pascale Casanova, Franco Moretti, Emily Apter), his limiting himself to David Damrosch [End Page 283] and Adam Kirsch is indicative of a highly personal approach. It would be unfair to criticize it for not adding much to the question of how and why Lispector belongs to World Literature because this is not what it is setting out to do. It is, nonetheless, tempting to imagine a different approach, one that would take into consideration the ways in which Lispector registers the material conditions of Brazilian society. Such an approach would go beyond questions of cultural capital to reflect on the ways in which Lispector exposes and denounces aspects of capitalism, including issues of social reproduction. But herein lies the beauty of an idiosyncratic collection which sets conversations in motion...