About the Author

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977), the greatest Brazilian writer of the twentieth century, has been called “astounding” (Rachel Kushner), “a penetrating genius” (Donna Seaman, Booklist), and “one of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers” (Orhan Pamuk). General editor of the new translations of Clarice Lispector’s complete works at New Directions, Benjamin Moser is the author of Why This World: The Biography of Clarice Lispector; Sontag: Her Life and Work, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; and The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters.

Reviews

"The Apple in the Dark is a retelling, a reversal, a recasting of the creation myth: a very unlikely bestseller, it’s very, very different from anything else she ever wrote. If you put it between The Besieged City, which comes before it, and The Passion According to G. H., which comes after, you’ll see just how radically experimental she was: how little she repeated herself, how she ‘made it new’ every single time."
*Benjamin Moser*

"A fitting capstone to a remarkable publishing endeavor."
*Sophia Stewart - The Millions*

"An experimental novel about becoming, existing, and being remade: seductive."
*Kirkus Reviews*

"May we all, after reading The Apple in the Dark, ‘stand in the calm profundity of the mystery."
*Carlos Valladares - Clarice Lispector's Vortex of Meaning - Frieze*

"This existential epic of a desperate criminal…stands among Lispector’s finest and most enigmatic achievements."
*Publishers Weekly (starred)*

""What in other hands might make for the premise behind a noir novel, Clarice Lispector uses to explore metaphysical questions of being, of existence expressed in a coiling language in which concrete nouns torque into abstract conceptions pushing sense to the limits of coherence…The Apple in the Dark represents Lispector at the height of her creative powers.”"
*Tom Bowden - The Book Beat*

"Puzzling and dazzling."
*Margarita Diaz - Cleveland Review of Books*

"A mind-bending, metaphysical novel of the psyche...abstract, yes, and languid in pacing, yet pointedly attentive to detail."
*Max Gray - Chicago Review of Books*