Seven decades after its original publication, Clarice Lispector\'s third novel--the story of a girl and the City her gaze reveals--is in English at last.
Written in Europe shortly after Clarice Lispector\'s own marriage, The Besieged City is a proving ground for the intricate language and the radical ideas that characterize one of her century\'s greatest writers--and an ironic ode to the magnetism of the material..
Yet it is precisely through this woman\'s superficiality--her identification with the porcelain knickknacks in her mother\'s parlor--that Clarice Lispector creates a profound and enigmatic meditation on the mystery of the thing.
As Lucr cia is tamed by marriage, Sao Geraldo gradually expels its horses; and as the town strives for the highest attainment it can conceive--a viaduct--it takes on the progressively more metropolitan manners that Lucr cia, with her vulgar ambitions, desires too.
Civilization is on its way to this place, where wild horses still roam.
Her suitors--soldierly Felipe, pensive Perseu, dependable Mateus--are attracted to her tawdry not-quite-beauty, which is of a piece with Sao Geraldo, the rough-and-ready township she inhabits.
Lucr cia Neves is ready to marry.
Seven decades after its original publication, Clarice Lispector\'s third novel--the story of a girl and the City her gaze reveals--is in English at last
