Hilda Hilst Book order

The narrative centers on Karl, a wealthy and amoral man who shares his explicit sexual experiences in a series of letters to his chaste sister, Cordelia. These letters blend modernist and Enlightenment styles, creating a provocative exploration of desire and identity. The story shifts when the impoverished poet Stamatius discovers Karl's discarded letters, leading him to craft his own fragmented tales inspired by Karl’s erotic adventures. This interplay blurs the lines between their identities, showcasing a shared obsession with language and seduction.

A visceral new translation of Hilda Hilst's radical first novel

Something has changed in Amos Keres, a university mathematics professor - his sentences trail off in class, he is disgusted by the sight of his wife and son, and he longs to flee the comfortable bourgeois life he finds himself a part of. Most difficult of all are his struggles to express what has happened to him, for a man more accustomed to numbers than words. He calls it 'the clearcut unhoped-for, ' and it's a vision that will drive him to madness and, eventually, death

The English-language debut of one of Brazil's leading writers of the twentieth century