This article examines the view of the Brazilian Jewish author Clarice Lispector on the Shoah.

What is it about?

This article examines the view of the Brazilian Jewish author Clarice Lispector on the triangular relation between Jewishness, the Shoah and the chosenness of the Jewish people by combining biographical evidence with a close reading of her short story “Perdoando Deus.”

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Why is it important?

Through an analysis of allegorical motifs, “Perdoando Deus” emerges as a historical, philosophical, and personal (anti)theological process. As such, this short story, mostly overlooked due to its obscurity, marks a watershed in Lispector’s oeuvre in terms of the recognition of her Jewishness — which she defines not as a religion but as an ethnic category and a collectivity of survivors.