There’s a line on page 8 that summarises Clarice Lispector’s Hour of the Star perfectly – ‘what I am about to write can’t be absorbed by minds that are very demanding and covet refinement.’ That could also sum up her writing in general, but I found it profound in the first few pages of this book, a novel would never have expected to flick open and be immersed by within a few sentences. It is one of those short but impactful classics that will stick with you for months.

The Hour of the Star, Clarice Lispector’s consummate final novel, may well be her masterpiece. Narrated by the cosmopolitan Rodrigo S.M., this brief, strange, and haunting tale is the story of Macabéa, one of life’s unfortunates. Living in the slums of Rio de Janeiro and eking out a poor living as a typist, Macabéa loves movies, Coca-Cola, and her rat of a boyfriend; she would like to be like Marilyn Monroe, but she is ugly, underfed, sickly, and unloved. Rodrigo recoils from her wretchedness, and yet he cannot avoid realisation that for all her outward misery, Macabéa is inwardly free. She doesn’t seem to know how unhappy she should be. Lispector employs her pathetic heroine against her urbane, empty narrator–edge of despair to edge of despair–and, working them like a pair of scissors, she cuts away the reader’s preconceived notions about poverty, identity, love, and the art of fiction. In her last novel she takes readers close to the true mystery of life, and leaves us deep in Lispector territory indeed.

I need to give the translator Benjamin Moser a pat on the back for Hour of the Star because it is truly a stunning translation of the novel. Often times, translations can omit the original intention of words and phrases through a word which may have been better switched for another. While this may be the case if you have read the Portuguese version, A Hora da Estrela, I feel this English version is more than enough to enchant, immerse, and stun the reader. From the stream-of-consciousness narrative style to the poetic prose, Clarice Lispector’s work is compelling and deeply heartfelt.

Hour of the Star is something so strange yet beautiful, odd in its grammar and structure yet intended to be so, even in the original Portuguese. It is about a woman who has next to nothing going for her, yet she doesn’t know it, and instead lives a life that is naive and free. The language and structure is reflected in the characters, feeling harmonious and cohesive, and overall making quite the impression. I will say that if you are not a big fan of poetic prose, stream-of-consciousness writing that comes in and out of the action, or stories with minimal framework and structure in terms of chapters and pacing, you might not enjoy Hour of the Star. It is a short read, but it is intense and jumps from point to point, observation and memory to fanciful additions and the narrator’s own thoughts, then back to our main character Macabéa.

In saying that, if you are a literary fiction fan, a poetry-adjacent junkie, a short story sampler, or a general classic fiction reader looking for something different yet stellar, especially if you want more classic reads from outside of the main countries of influence, then Hour of the Star is your next read. Clarice Lispector’s writing is phenomenal and much-deserving of readers, praise, and analysis. Hour of the Star is certainly something that will stick with you for weeks to come.