Clarice Lispector was born in a tiny Ukrainian village, while her parents were fleeing Stalin’s troops on the way to a new life across the Atlantic, to settle among the Jewish refugee communities of Northeastern Brazil. Although she was only two months old when her family (her parents Pinkus and Marieta and her sisters Elisa and Tania) arrived in Brazil, and was naturalised by the government of Getúlio Vargas in 1943, her ‘foreign’ name and appearance did contribute to perceptions of her as being unconventional when she began publishing fiction.
When she was older, Lispector wrote stories and newspaper chronicles about her childhood in Recife with nostalgia and fondness rather than bitterness about her family’s meagre means and her mother’s painful illness and paralysis. After
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Citation: Williams, Claire. "Clarice Lispector". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 December 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2755, accessed 21 November 2024.]
