Selected Cronicas

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CLARICE LISPECTOR is widely recognized as the most original and innovative Brazilian woman writer of this century. In 1984, seven years after she died of cancer, Lispector’s son edited the so-called crônicas or chronicles which she published in the Saturday edition of the Jornal do Brasil [The Brazilian News] from August 1967 until December 1973. Arranged in chronological order, the book (A Descoberta do Mundo)* is a miscellaneous collection of aphorisms, diary entries, reminiscences, travel notes, interviews, serialized stories, essays, loosely defined as ‘chronicles’: a genre peculiar to Brazil which allows poets and writers to address a wider readership on a vast range of topics and themes. The general tone is one of greater freedom and intimacy than one finds in comparable articles or weekly columns in the European or U.S. press.

Lispector confessed she did not find it easy to adapt to the genre. She inquired: Is the chronicle a story? a conversation? the revelation of one’s inner thoughts? She questioned the wisdom of tackling a genre which to some extent was alien to her introspective nature. Summing up her disquiet, she commented: ‘I am apprehensive. Writing too much and too often can contaminate the word’ or as Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese poet whom she admired, once said: ‘Speaking is the easiest way of becoming unknown’. She was afraid of becoming too personal, and the need to be topical and conform to the conditions and constraints of a weekly column worried her. As she acquired more confidence, she freely adapted the genre to suit her own purpose.

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