Literature As a Mean of Self-knowledge, Liberation, and Feminine Empowerment: The Legacy of Clarice Lispector

Abstract: Access to books and literature is, above all, a human right. The acts of reading, creating, and fictionalizing are in themselves, acts of power. Accordingly, literature is a well-respected necessity in society; therefore, a universal human need. Thus, denying women the right to literature is also a form of violation. In this presentation, the author aims to reflect not only on literature by female authors but also its importance in the process of constructing women's subjectivity and identity, whether in reading fiction or in its production. To reflect on women's right to read and write literature, as well as their way of expressing their perception, anxieties, and ways of understanding the world, this presentation proposes a literary analysis of texts by the Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector. Her works evidence the potential of bringing light to the processes of self-knowledge and freedom. These processes can be ignited because these texts can trigger the process of self-awareness and can then generate female empowerment. By reading Clarice Lispector's writing, it remains clear that she reveals human dramas specific to the female universe, as she opens up possibilities for readers to know themselves as women and to project themselves as producers of literature. It would seem that these realities are founded worlds and realities apart from those that dominated male perceptions during the 1950s to 1970s when she was writing; however, many of those predominant male perceptions prevail in today’s contemporary society. Keywords: Women's Writing; Reception; Self knowledge; Clarice Lispector; Empowerment.