The Living Water

"The Living Water" is an experimental novel-reflection on the nature of life and time by the most important Brazilian writer of the 20th century, Clarice Lispector, written in the form of an improvisational poetic monologue, where the picturesque, musical, and tactile properties of the text come to the forefront. The unconventionality of the language, philosophical depth, sensuality, and aspiration for universality do not allow for a definitive genre classification of Lispector's prose, enticing the reader into a bewitching, demiurgic whirlwind into the world of synesthesia, of bare existence on the verge between the animal, the vegetable, and the human.
Clarice Lispector (1920-1977) was a Brazilian writer. She was born into a Jewish family in the town of Chechelnik in present-day Ukraine, and her family emigrated to Brazil in 1922. She studied law, worked in journalism and translation. In the 1940s-1950s, she lived in Europe and the USA, where her husband was in diplomatic service. She is the author of numerous novels, short story collections, and children's books. She was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit for her outstanding contribution to Brazilian literature, where her books are included in the school curriculum.