Examining Whiteness
Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison

Lucia Villares

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Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

6 July 2011  •  214pp

ISBN: 978-1-906540-47-0 (hardback)  •  RRP £80, $110, €95

ISBN: 978-1-351193-91-7 (Taylor & Francis ebook)

ModernPortugueseFiction

Critics consider Clarice Lispector the leading female writer in the Brazilian literary canon. Her connections with the nation, however, seem to magically disappear as her work is analysed. This paradox is the starting point for this analysis of the works of an author who - despite being born in the Ukraine - grew up to become an irreplaceable presence in Brazilian literature. Non-Brazilian authors, such as the South African Bessie Head and the North American Toni Morrison, provide triggering concepts to help tackle a blind-spot in Brazilian culture: the issue of racial difference. From this new perspective overlooked black characters in Lispector’s work become crucial and relevant, and whiteness emerges as an unexamined set of norms.

Lucia Villares is a Brazilian writer, specializing in the study of modern Brazilian fiction.

Reviews:

  • ‘By enhancing our understanding of Clarice Lispector’s novels with such an original and indispensable study, Villares demonstrates other unexplored ways through which Lispector broke away from the Primitivist vogue and mulattophilia of her generation of modernistas... During those years of intensively nationalist modernizing projects, performing whiteness included the assimilation of an urban ethos, among other bourgeois life standards. Villares’ study highlights the relevance of Lispector’s work for our comprehension of such deep cultural transformations.’ — Sonia Roncador, Ellipsis 12, 2014, 311-13

Bibliography entry:

Villares, Lucia, Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison (Legenda, 2011)

First footnote reference: 35 Lucia Villares, Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison (Legenda, 2011), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Villares, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Bibliography entry:

Villares, Lucia. 2011. Examining Whiteness: Reading Clarice Lispector through Bessie Head and Toni Morrison (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Villares 2011: 21).

Example footnote reference: 35 Villares 2011: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

This Legenda title was first published by Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing but rights to it are now held by Modern Humanities Research Association and Routledge.

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Permanent link to this title:

www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Examining-Whiteness