Author's Name: Clarice Lispector

Close to the Wild Heart is the first novel written by Clarice Lispector, written in 1943 when she was twenty years old. Clarice surprised critics with her debut novel and won their admiration, and her literary style was likened to that of Virginia Woolf and James Joyce. The story follows Joanna's inner journey from childhood to adulthood, exploring her reflections on identity, loneliness, and connection to the world around her. Joanna herself expresses her inner life and compares her experiences as a girl with those of an adult, sometimes immersed in the past, sometimes in the present, according to the thread of memory. As for Joanna, the girl, she is not simply a motherless girl, living with her father, later with her aunt, and then at boarding school. Nor is the adolescent Joanna simply a young woman who is not adept at coexisting with the people around her and dazzled by the discovery of her femininity. Joanna is not merely a wife according to the patriarchal mold, expected to conform to routine without surprise or disturbance, nor is she a lover who maintains passion, content with temporary moments of euphoria. Through streams of consciousness, this intimate and solitary novel delves into the complexities of the human mind, shedding light on the search to understand the "wild heart" that beats within every human being.