Tchetchelnik (URSS), 1920 – Río de Janeiro (Brasil), 1977
By Flávio Aguiar
Daughter of Ukrainians, from a Jewish family, she came to Brazil as a child and lived in Pernambuco, then in Rio de Janeiro, where she worked as a writer and translator. Antonio Candido saw her as the “origin of the disintegrating trends that dissolve the plot into description.” In 1940, she began writing short stories, which were later published in A bela e a fera (1979), and started working as a journalist, which brought her closer to various intellectuals, including Lúcio Cardoso, an author of intimate novels with whom she became friends and a reader.
In 1944, she published her first book, Perto do coração selvagem, the same year she married a career diplomat, which led her to spend long periods in Europe and the United States. During these years, she focused on motherhood and writing various short stories, which were classified as “works of art” by writer Fernando Sabino. After ending her marriage, she returned to Brazil, where she was hailed by critics for her vigorous introspective literature. In 1961, she published the novel A maçã no escuro. She received the Jabuti Award from the Brazilian Book Chamber for Laços de família (1960).
She became widely read in France after the translation of A paixão segundo G. H. (1964). Alongside works by writers such as Lygia Fagundes Telles and Nélida Piñon, she linked feminist issues to an intimate perspective. In the spectrum of formal experimentation by Maria Alice Barroso, Osman Lins, Guimarães Rosa, and Ana Miranda, the originality of her poetic prose results from a prolific exploration of language within the realm of the psychic flow. In 1969, she published the children’s book A mulher que matou os peixes and received the Calunga Order for O mistério do coelhinho pensante (1967), an award given by the National Children’s Campaign.
Amid the intensification of the Brazilian military dictatorship, she interviewed personalities for Manchete magazine in the section “Diálogos possíveis com Clarice Lispector” and participated in the “Passeata dos 100 mil” protest against the regime in June 1968. In that year, she was appointed as an assistant administrator for the State and gave lectures in Belo Horizonte.
She developed a style as unique as the Costa Rican Eunice Odio, to whom she is linked through esoteric mysticism. Her work is studied from various perspectives, such as the social bias of A hora da estrela (Jabuti Award, 1998) and the Jewish bias of her books. Other works: O lustre (1946); Felicidade clandestina (1971); Água viva (1973).
