Perto do coração selvagem

Near to the Wild Heart (Perto do coração selvagem) is Clarice Lispector's debut novel, written from March to November 1942 and published around her twenty-third birthday in December 1943. The novel, written in a stream-of-consciousness style reminiscent of the English-language Modernists, centers on the childhood and early adulthood of a character named Joana, who bears strong resemblance to her author: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi", Lispector said, quoting Gustave Flaubert, when asked about the similarities. The book, particularly its revolutionary language, brought its young, unknown creator to great prominence in Brazilian letters and earned her the prestigious Graça Aranha Prize. It has been translated into English twice, the first by Giovanni Pontiero in 1990, and again by Alison Entrekin in 2012.