Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
Clarice Lispector was born in Ukraine to Jewish parents, but they immigrated to Brazil when she was a baby. Though she and her two older sisters were raised as Jews, she identified herself as a Brazilian, and called Portuguese the language of her soul. (source)
Later in life she burned her right hand in an apartment fire (she fell asleep while her cigarette was still lit), and it came to resemble a black claw).
Lispector was a brilliant writer and, like a lot of brilliant writers, an impossible person. As one woman said, "Nobody can stand [being friends with her] for long." Way harsh. (source)
Clarice Lispector once wrote, "I am so mysterious that even I don't understand myself." (source)
Lispector said that the idea for the story came when she was riding home in a taxi after visiting a fortuneteller, who told her that wonderful things were going to happen to her. She thought, "It'd be really funny if a taxi hit me and ran me over and I died after hearing all those good things." (source)