Too Much of Life, Clarice Lispector
Too Much of Life, Clarice Lispector
List: $29.95 | Sale: $20.97
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Too Much of Life
The Complete Crônicas

Author: Clarice Lispector, Margaret Jull Costa, Robin Patterson

Narrator: Roxanne Hernandez

Unabridged: 23 hr 45 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/17/2023

Synopsis

In the magnificent feast of Clarice Lispector’s books, her crônicas―short, intensely vivid newspaper pieces―are the delicious canapés.“The things I’ve learned from taxi drivers would be enough to fill a book. They know a lot: they really do get around. I may know a lot about Antonioni that they don’t know. Or maybe they do even when they don’t. There are various ways of knowing by not-knowing. I know: it happens to me too.”The crônica, a literary genre peculiar to Brazilian newspapers, allows writers, or even soccer stars, to address a wide readership on any theme they like.Chatty, mystical, intimate, flirtatious, and revelatory, Clarice Lispector’s pieces for the Saturday edition of Rio’s leading paper, the Jornal do Brasil, from 1967 to 1973, take the forms of memories, essays, aphorisms, and serialized stories. Endlessly delightful, her insights make one sit up and think, whether about children or social ills or pets or society women or the business of writing or love.This new, beautifully translated work presents a new aspect of the great writer―at once off the cuff and spot on.

About Clarice Lispector

Brazil’s greatest writer, Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) has been called “one of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers” (Orhan Pamuk).

About Roxanne Hernandez

Roxanne Hernandez is an audio narrator and a top narrator choice for young adult, adult drama, and Latin American/Chicano literature. She was a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration in 2011.

About Margaret Jull Costa

Margaret Jull Costa has won the Oxford-Weidenfeld translation prize four times and frequently cotranslates with Robin Patterson.

About Robin Patterson

Robin Patterson became a literary translator after pursuing a legal career in various parts of the world. He has translated Our Musseque by José Luandino Vieira and more.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mari on May 18, 2022

All the Chronicles of Clarice Lispector" is a volume that presents in a single edition the work in chronological order that was signed by Clarice when she worked for Jornal Brasil (between 1967 and 1973). Ideal for those who still don't know her or are afraid of her writing, or for those who already......more

Goodreads review by Bagus on March 29, 2025

Clarice Lispector is mainly known for her fiction. But being a single mother of two, she used to earn extra income by writing a weekly column (in Brazilian Portuguese, crônica) for the Rio-based newspaper Jornal do Brasil since 1967. Around 80 per cent of this volume contains Clarice’s crônicas in t......more

Goodreads review by Carolina on May 12, 2019

Um livro que recebi de prenda de Natal (vejam lá, só agora cheguei a ele, haha) e que me encantou do início ao fim. Até agora, ainda só li um romance de Clarice Lispector, que me surpreendeu pela sua clareza na linguagem e análise do personagem. Nestas crónicas, encontramos uma Clarice mais próxima......more

Goodreads review by Anastasiia on June 18, 2023

so much daily joy and pain in one person!......more

Goodreads review by Antonio on November 30, 2022

Knowing a writer through their work is a pleasure. When a writer becomes literature our spirit is lifted, our minds glow and our body feels lighter. Clarice’s Cronicas do just that and more. Life is not art, it becomes art. Living is not art, it becomes literature. Reading the selected edition is a......more

Quotes

“This long flirtation with her readers was a triumphant metamorphosis for the avant garde author." Times Literary Supplement (London)

“Her crônicas muddied demarcations between nonfiction and fiction, resurrecting the oldest question of form: Where does nonfiction truly end and fiction begin?” Paris Review

“Clarice Lispector had a diamond-hard intelligence, a visionary instinct, and a sense of humor that veered from naif wonder to wicked comedy...[about] the ‘marvelous scandal,’ as Lispector puts it, of life." Bookforum

“Page after page of thoughts, worries, inspirations, and commentaries…Topics include men, women, sons, maids, cooks, and taxi drivers…[and] ruminations on weariness and rage…[that] speak to contemporary readers.” Library Journal (starred review)

“Among the era’s most brilliant essayists. She is masterful, even reminiscent of Montaigne, in her ability to spin the mundane events of life into moments of clarity that reveal greater truths. Superb, wonderfully obsessed with exuberance and what it unlocks and reveals.” Publishers Weekly

“Sphinx, sorceress, sacred monster. The revival of the hypnotic Clarice Lispector has been one of the true literary events of the twenty-first century.” The New York Times

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