Why This World

Clarice Lispector is one of the hidden geniuses of twentieth-century literature. Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing ... Benjamin Moser's biography is a great book about a Jewish heroine, filled with sympathy for what must remain hidden and what must be understood

Colm Tóibín

Everything about Lispector was unlikely: her great beauty, her early fame, her unique voice, her status as an icon to the Brazilians. In Moser, she has found a gifted young biographer, social historian, and prose stylist who is able to take her elusive measure. This book is enthralling.'

Judith Thurman

Lispector is one of the summits of Latin American literature. Whether or not you know this delicate and powerful woman, this splendid biography deserves to be read. After finishing it, you will be in love with her'

Guillermo Arriaga

Glamorous, cultured, moody, Lispector is an emblematic twentieth-century artist who belongs in the same pantheon as Kafka and Joyce. Benjamin Moser has recreated all the psychological and cultural context needed to understand this great writer, and brought to life her essentially tragic nature in all its complexity

Edmund White