{"id":8845,"date":"2026-08-12T12:36:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T15:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pracaclovis.com\/?post_type=traducao&p=8845"},"modified":"2026-09-21T17:40:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T20:40:25","slug":"a-hora-da-estrela","status":"publish","type":"traducao","link":"https:\/\/pracaclovis.com\/?traducao=a-hora-da-estrela","title":{"rendered":"A hora da estrela"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LISPECTOR, Clarice. A hora da estrela<\/em>. Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Jos\u00e9 Olympio, 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cristiane C\u00f4rtes
Translated by Laila Talukder
Illustrated by L\u00e9o Tavares<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clarice Lispector was born in Ukraine in 1920, but her family moved to Brazil shortly afterwards. She spent her early childhood in the city of Recife. In 1935, she moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she attended Law School. She lived abroad for over a decade, however, after separating from her husband, she moved back to Rio de Janeiro. There, she died from ovarian cancer in 1977. It was only in the early 1940s that her life became dedicated to literary writing, although she had written her first text a decade earlier. Her debut novel Perto do cora\u00e7\u00e3o selvagem <\/em>[Near to the Wild Heart<\/em>,Penguin Classics, translated by Alison Entrekin in 2014] was first published in 1943 and paved the way for postmodernism in Brazil. Her writing was dense and unsettling in a world still recovering from the traumatic experiences of two wars in half a century. Indeed, in Brazil, transformations in the social and political landscape had a considerable influence on written works. Literature transformed alongside the evolving landscape of the period, such as the end of the Vargas era, the rise and fall of populism, and the military dictatorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hora da estrela <\/em>(The Hour of the Star,<\/em> Penguin Classics, translated by Benjamin Moser) is one of Clarice Lispector\u2019s most famous books. The short intricate novel tells the story of Macab\u00e9a, a typist from Alagoas state, and her author, Rodrigo S.M. It is he who assumes the role of narrating the woman\u2019s dull and impoverished daily life. Metalanguage is one of the most striking aspects of this profound yet compact novel as the fictional author becomes part of the plot, crafting his writing in real time. Published in 1977, the same year the author died, the text was adapted into a highly acclaimed film in 1985 by Suzana Amaral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This compelling and intimate novel begins with Rodrigo S.M.\u2019s explanation of his desire to tell the story of a woman from the Northeast of Brazil who he spots on the street one day. The account appears to be about Macab\u00e9a\u2019s sad and lonely life, but the plot also reveals a self-centred narrator and his difficulty in grasping the essence of her character. The work contains two stories within the same plot, with Macab\u00e9a\u2019s life at the forefront. She is an orphaned woman from the Northeast, raised by her authoritarian aunt, who migrates to Rio de Janeiro in search of better working conditions. Although she cannot read or write well, her typing course lands her a job at an accounting firm. Her humble life is limited to the room she shares with four other girls, shop assistants from the Lojas Americanas<\/em> department store, as well as trips to the cinema which help fuel her dream of becoming an actress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Macab\u00e9a\u2019s moments of pleasure are few and far between, from listening to a radio station, drinking iced coffee and Coca-Cola, to eating hot dogs. Though in love with Ol\u00edmpico, her boyfriend who is also from the Northeast, she is devastated to discover that he has left her for Gl\u00f3ria, her carioca workmate and a butcher\u2019s daughter. Distraught by the abandonment and all the hardships in her life, Macab\u00e9a seeks out a fortune-teller, on Gl\u00f3ria\u2019s advice, to find happiness. Madame Carlota lays out all the sadness and loneliness that consumes the protagonist. However, she also makes her believe that something wonderful will happen and that the poor Northeastern woman\u2019s life will take a surprising turn. Faced with dazzling new possibilities, Macab\u00e9a experiences a moment of ecstasy, the pinnacle of an epiphany typical of Lispector\u2019s writing. This is abruptly interrupted when she is hit by a car. In the glare of a yellow Mercedes\u2019s headlights, Macab\u00e9a\u2019s time comes, and she dies sprawled on the pavement, at last catching the attention of passersby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Running parallel to the narrative about Macab\u00e9a is Rodrigo S.M.\u2019s story and his dilemma about his character who, in his own words, has nothing to offer him. This results in a chaotic discourse that reveals the setbacks an author faces given the impossibility and complexity of representation in the literary text. The protagonist\u2019s silence is an aspect of the novel that causes deep unease for both the narrator and the readers. Against the backdrop of a character-narrator figure, the novel presents the tension of a contradictory otherness whereby the fictionalised author believes in the possibility of saving his character from anonymity. However, what the reader encounters is a story centred on this author and his struggles regarding the impossibility of writing about an experience of which he knows little: the life of a woman and her bleak existence. This ultimately reveals his own misery: \u201cI\u2019m writing in this instant with a bit of previous modesty because I\u2019m invading you with such an exterior and explicit narrative. Out of which however blood so pantingly full of life might ooze and congeal into cubes of trembling jelly. Will this story someday become my own congealing? How do I know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodrigo\u2019s relationship with Macab\u00e9a is that of a creator and his creation, his object of study, his escape. It is a reason to produce work with a social slant, a narrative that provokes the same discomfort that it portrays: \u201cWhat I write is more than mere invention; it is my obligation to tell you about this one girl out of the thousands like her. And my duty, however artlessly, to reveal her life.\u201d The narrator notes that the story is accompanied from start to finish by a slight toothache, \u201csomething to do with chipped enamel\u201d, which highlights the conflict already foreshadowed between the experience of poverty and fictionalised poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rodrigo admits to a certain detachment from his subject and the strategies he employs to grasp it: \u201cthis story will be the result of a gradual vision\u201d; \u201cWhat I plan to tell seems easy and accessible to everyone. But its elaboration is very difficult. Since I have to make clear something that\u2019s almost erased and that I can hardly see.\u201d This gradual vision and modesty are set within a game where, under the pretext of speaking about another subject, the conflict of the intellectual who wonders whether poverty can be represented is brought to light. Clarice Lispector reveals her mastery by creating a character-author whose metalinguistic discourse lays bare the implications that the very act of literary creation reveals. This choice of a man belonging to a cultural elite is no accident. As the narrator notes from the very first pages: \u201cMoreover\u2014I realize now\u2014nobody would miss me either. And even what I\u2019m writing somebody else could write. A male writer, that is, because a woman would make it all weepy and maudlin.\u201d The metalinguistic narrative centred on the character Rodrigo exposes the authority attributed to the male gender in the literary sphere. The \u2018necessity\u2019 of having a male narrator unmasks a tradition in which women have no place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another key method supporting this view is the description of characters, whereby a male narrator lifts the veil on the traditional novel and exposes the speaker\u2019s inherent power: \u201cThe story\u2014I determine with false free will\u2014will have around seven characters, and I\u2019m obviously one of the more important. I, Rodrigo S.M.. An old tale, this, since I don\u2019t want to be all modern and invent trendy words to make myself look original.\u201d Rodrigo does not dwell on the other characters, in this introduction nor at any other point in the narrative. This is because \u201cthe subject of the novel is the very act of writing the novel\u201d (Gotlib, 2001), which, ironically, features a man as the narrator for the very reasons he has already explained himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clarice Lispector\u2019s writing roots itself in a modernity whereby chaos ultimately becomes a form of language, as lived experience deteriorates. For Nunes (1989), the poetics of the author of Perto do cora\u00e7\u00e3o selvagem<\/em> (1943) [Near to the Wild Heart <\/em>(2015)] move from word to silence and from silence to word in a densely metaphorical vein. As a new form of narration, it conveys human drama and reflects the inability to use words to recount experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In The Hour of the Star<\/em>, the decision to engage with the social and regional landscape is one of the hallmarks of Lispector\u2019s literary brilliance. Whereas regionalism was thoroughly explored in the 1930s novel and in the work of Guimar\u00e3es Rosa, Lispector approaches it from a different perspective. Bringing the woman from the Northeast to the city of Rio de Janeiro and exposing all the confinement and loneliness in the major cities is a replication of the backlands in the Southeast. Macab\u00e9a\u2019s deafening silence has the power to paralyse S.M. and show the reader the uncomfortable and troubled place of subalternity. In literature, having the capacity to aesthetically articulate an oppressed reality is to envision a better future, a situation where it is possible to glimpse ways out of oppression. Reading The Hour of the Star <\/em>is worthwhile precisely because it brings the reader into contact with Clarice Lispector and all her formidable power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOTLIB, N\u00e1dia Battella (2001). Macab\u00e9a e as mil pontas de uma estrela. In<\/em>: MOTA, Louren\u00e7o Dantas; JUNIOR, Benjamin Abdala (Org.). Personae<\/em>: grandes personagens da literatura brasileira. S\u00e3o Paulo: Senac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NUNES, Benedito (1989). O drama da linguagem<\/em>: uma leitura de Clarice Lispector. S\u00e3o Paulo: \u00c1tica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ABEL, Carlos Alberto (2011). A prolet\u00e1ria Macab\u00e9a. Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contempor\u00e2nea<\/em>, Bras\u00edlia, n. 4, p. 1-5. Dispon\u00edvel em: https:\/\/periodicos.unb.br\/index.php\/estudos\/article\/view\/8846<\/a>. Acesso em: 25 mar. 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C\u00d4RTES, Cristiane de Ara\u00fajo (2009). As pontas de uma estrela<\/em>: po\u00e9ticas do sil\u00eancio em Macab\u00e9a e Ponci\u00e1. 2016. Tese (Doutorado em Estudos Liter\u00e1rios) \u2013 Faculdade de Letras, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte. Dispon\u00edvel em: https:\/\/repositorio.ufmg.br\/bitstream\/1843\/LETR-ATBPKJ\/1\/tese_cristiane_felipe_ribeiro_de_araujo_c_rtes.pdf<\/a>. Acesso em: 25 mar. 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOPES, Luiz Carlos Gon\u00e7alves (2013). Formas da alegria<\/em>: res\u00edduos do tr\u00e1gico em Clarice Lispector. Tese (Doutorado em Literatura Comparada) \u2013 Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S\u00c1, L\u00facia (2011). A hora da estrela e o mal-estar das elites. Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contempor\u00e2nea<\/em>, Bras\u00edlia, n. 23, p. 49-65. Dispon\u00edvel em: https:\/\/periodicos.unb.br\/index.php\/estudos\/article\/view\/8990<\/a>. Acesso em: 25 mar. 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INSTITUTO MOREIRA SALES [s.d.]. Notas de A hora da estrela<\/em>. Dispon\u00edvel em: https:\/\/site.claricelispector.ims.com.br\/acervo\/notas-de-a-hora-da-estrela\/.<\/a> Acesso em: 25 mar. 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iconography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n