The Besieged City

The Besieged City, Clarice Lispector's revelatory third novel, is now available in English for the first time.

Written in flight from Lispector's 'shipwreck of introspection', it is a book unlike any other in the Lispector canon, a novel focused on the simple act of seeing the external world. Its heroine, Lucrecia, is utterly mute and unreflective, possibly devoid of any inner life. The plot is unlike any other Lispector narrative: a small-town girl marries a rich man, explores the world, and lives happily ever after.

Despite this seemingly straightforward story, the novel includes miraculous horses, linguistic ecstasies, catty remarks, visions from minor characters, and music from unknown sources. Lucrecia, free from the burden of thought, 'leaned over without any individuality, trying merely to look at things directly'. Yet, as her 'mere' looking progresses, it leads, as Lispector's biographer Benjamin Moser notes, 'paradoxically but inevitably, to Clarice's own metaphysical concerns. As it turns out, not being profound is simply another way of being profound'.

Translated by Johnny Lorenz