An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures

“A passionate, tender work, An Apprenticeship is also perhaps Lispector’s most accessible. She herself admitted as much; in it, she remarked ‘I humanized myself.’” – Lit Hub
“In An Apprenticeship, Lóri performs a sort of gonzo-philosophy, putting her body in service of an internal monologue in which she struggles to understand herself, her writing, and sexual desire as a whole.” – Los Angeles Review of Books
“This deep immersion into the vicissitudes of love will delight Lispector devotees.” – Publishers Weekly
“A genius on the level of Nabokov.” – Jeff Vandermeer - Slate
“The revival of the hypnotic Clarice Lispector has been one of the true literary events of the 21st century.” – Parul Sehgal - The New York Times
“Spellbinding and endlessly fascinating.” – The Spectator
“Lispector had an ability to write as though no one had ever written before. One of the hidden geniuses of the twentieth century, in the same league as Flann O’Brien, Borges, and Pessoa—utterly original and brilliant, haunting and disturbing.” – Colm Tóibín
“Every translation of her writing is belated and urgent. We’re playing catch-up. Don’t hesitate… Lispector’s writing is like glass: granular detail turned to liquid under impossible heat, and then hardened and crystallized into a wet, new thing. Its fragility requires a certain patience to handle; it always feels on the edge of shattering. It turns the sky into a kind of object. It welcomes the light.” – Audrey Wollen - The New York Times
“Her writing is hypnotic and evocative, drawing out deep emotional truths, while playing with form. An Apprenticeship is an attempt to understand human connection and its limits, following a woman on her earnest journey out of solitude and in search of love.” – Buzzfeed

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) was a Brazilian writer considered one of the greatest of the twentieth century. She has been described as “astounding” by Rachel Kushner, “a penetrating genius” by Donna Seaman of Booklist, and “one of the twentieth century’s most mysterious writers” by Orhan Pamuk.

Stefan Tobler, born in Belém, Brazil, is the publisher of And Other Stories and also works as a translator from Portuguese and German. His translation of Arno Geiger’s The Old King in His Exile was shortlisted for the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize and the Schlegel-Tieck Prize. His other translations include Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva, which was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize, and Raduan Nassar’s A Cup of Rage, a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize.

Sheila Heti is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction, including How Should a Person Be?, which New York Magazine recognized as one of the “New Classics of the 21st century.” The New York Times book critics named her one of “The New Vanguard,” and Motherhood was selected as a top book of 2018 by numerous publications. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages.

Benjamin Moser is the general editor of the new translations of Clarice Lispector’s complete works at New Directions. He is also the author of Why This World: The Biography of Clarice Lispector; Sontag: Her Life and Work, which received the Pulitzer Prize; and The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.