Clarice Lipsector - Her First Short Story "The Triumph" (1940, in The Complete Short Stories of Clarice Lipsector, to be published August, 2015, translated by Katrina Dodson, edited and introduced by Benjamin Moser)

A New Project    --  The Short Stories of Clarice Lispector

Clarice Lipsector, born in a Shetl in the Ukraine, at age one moved with her family to Brazil. She wrote in Portugese and became a Brazilian citizen.   She would go on to be widely considered the most important Jewish writer since Kafka and Latin America's greatest female writer.  I was very pleased to be given an advance review copy The Complete Short Stories of Clarice Lipsector by New Directions Press.  There are 86 stories in all, arranged in publication order.  I have decided to read all the stories and post on a number of them.  One advantage of this is you can see the artistic development of the author.   I have done this with a number of writers and found it a good idea.

"The Triumph" kind of reminded me of a Dorothy Parker story, only harsher.  It is told in the first person by a woman whose boyfriend has just left their house after a fight. He has left before and returned.  She wonders if the neighbors heard them fight.  She knows in the past they have heard them have sex after a quarrel.  Her boyfriend, maybe it is her husband, is a writer, a man of culture and sophistication, probably a bit haughty.  She looks all over for a note.  She at last finds one in which he explains he cannot write while living there.  She sees this as meaning he will return, he is venting.

I am looking very much forward to reading the remaining 85 stories.  I hope to go deeply into her work and cultural background.  

Mel u