“That rare person who looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf,” Clarice Lispector is one of Latin America's most popular yet least understood literary figures. In the book Why This World, after years of research on three continents, Benjamin Moser reveals how Lispector's development as a writer was directly linked to the story of her tumultuous life. Born in the nightmarish landscape of post-World War I Ukraine, Clarice became, almost from adolescence, a person whose beauty, genius, and eccentricity thrilled Brazil.

Why This World narrates how this gifted girl, through long exiles abroad and difficult personal challenges, evolved into a great writer, pointing out for the first time her deep ties to the Jewish mystical tradition, making her a true heir to Kafka, as well as the unlikely author of “perhaps the greatest spiritual autobiography of the twentieth century.” From Chechelnik to Recife, from Naples and Bern to Washington, D.C., and Rio de Janeiro, Why This World uncovers the mythology surrounding this extraordinary figure and shows how Clarice Lispector transformed the struggles of a woman into an art that resonates universally.

Benjamin Moser is the New Books columnist for Harper's Magazine. He was born in Houston in 1976 and currently lives in the Netherlands. He is a contributor to The New York Review of Books and has written for Conde Nast Traveler and Newsweek, as well as many other publications.

Pages: 512, Dimensions: 13x13cm