The Woman Who Killed the Fish

by Clarice Lispector, Benjamin Moser (Translator)

Overview

Four beguiling tales for children of all ages.

A surprising new facet of Clarice Lispector’s genius

“That woman who killed the fish unfortunately is me,” begins the title story, but “if it were my fault, I’d own up to you, since I don’t lie to boys and girls. I only lie sometimes to a certain type of grownup because there’s no other way.” Enumerating all the animals she’s loved—cats, dogs, lizards, chickens, monkeys—Clarice finally asks: “Do you forgive me?”

“The Mystery of the Thinking Rabbit” is a detective story which explains that bunnies think with their noses: for a single idea a bunny might “scrunch up his nose fifteen thousand times” (he may not be too bright, but “he’s not foolish at all when it comes to making babies”). The third tale, “Almost True,” is a shaggy dog yarn narrated by a pooch who is very worried about a wicked witch: “I am a dog named Ulisses and my owner is Clarice.” The wonderful last story, “Laura’s Intimate Life” stars “the nicest hen I’ve ever seen.” Laura is “quite dumb,” but she has her “little thoughts and feelings. Not a lot, but she’s definitely got them. Just knowing she’s not completely dumb makes her feel all chatty and giddy. She thinks that she thinks.” A one-eyed visitor from Jupiter arrives and vows Laura will never be eaten: she’s been worrying, because “humans are a weird sort of person” who can love hens and eat them, too. Such throwaway wisdom abounds: “Don’t even get me started.” These delightful, high-hearted stories, written for her own boys, have charm to burn—and are a treat for every Lispector reader.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811229609
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	09/27/2022
Series:	Storybook ND Series
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	308,312
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century, has been called “astounding” (Rachel Kushner), “a penetrating genius” (Donna Seaman, Booklist), and “one of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers” (Orhan Pamuk).

General editor of the new translations of Clarice Lispector’s complete works at New Directions, BENJAMIN MOSER is the author of Why This World: The Biography of Clarice Lispector, and Sontag: Her Life and Work, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. His new book, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters, will be published in October.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/06/2022

Readers will delight in this short collection of luminous, laugh-out-loud stories from the late Brazilian cult writer Lispector (The Chandelier). Each centers on the natural world, though in wildly different ways. In the title story, a meticulous woman apologizes and attempts to exculpate herself in the death of two pet fish by taking readers on a tour of the many animals she has dearly loved and cared for. In the fabulist “Almost True,” the narrator, a dog named Ulisses, relates “a nicely barked story” to his owner, Clarice, about chickens under the thrall of a magical fig tree. “The Mystery of the Thinking Rabbit” features caveats directed at the adults reading these stories aloud. Though the author wrote these stories for her son when he was a child, and they often contain magic and lack in explanations, their small delights nonetheless rank high among Lispector’s impressive body of work. In between the lines of these spellbinding worlds, she offers indelible glimpses of the way people live and dream. Even amid the silliest of scenarios are glimmers of the beauty of the everyday: “That’s how life went on. Gently, gently.” This is one to savor. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Better than Borges."

Elizabeth Bishop

"Lispector should be on the shelf with Kafka and Joyce."

|Los Angeles Times

"A writer of formidable modernist pedigree, it is something of a relief to find her working in a chatty, mischievous mode and concerned with that most storybook of subjects, the ‘intimate life’ of animals."

The New Left Review - J.W. McCormack

"Bought pets, animals must either conform to our anthropomorphic lens or, as “uninvited natural creatures,” remain too repellent to merit our sympathy. The title story’s sly narrator implicates both herself and the reader, by justifying the fatal neglect of her son’s fish on her all-consuming work as a fiction writer."

National Public Radio - Thuy Dinh

"Utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing."

Colm Tóibín