ABSTRACT
Criticisms of the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector have so far failed to elucidate an aspect that is salient in her fiction. This chapter suggests the problem was more outside Lispector than inside herself or her work. Lispector was born in the Ukraine, to a Jewish family. By repeatedly creating such imaginary spaces, Lispector was describing a problem. The protagonists of her novels are mostly individuals whose subjectivity is somehow at risk, who are facing problems of agency. The experimental work undertaken in the novels permitted Lispector to condense this problem in her short stories. The coherence that Lispector is trying to preserve is not one between these surroundings and an essence, but the coherence between narration and her experience of living in and with the nation. Lispector is indeed dealing with the boundaries of language and touching upon the unspeakable.
