The Besieged City

Clarice Lispector's revelatory third novel, now 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 about simply seeing the external world. Its heroine Lucrecia is utterly mute and unreflective. She may have no inner life. The plot itself is utterly unlike any other Lispector narrative- small-town girl marries rich man, sees the world, and lives happily ever after.