The Obscene Madame D - Paperback

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by Hilda Hilst (Author), Nathanaël (Translator), Rachel Gontijo Araujo (Translator)

A wickedly funny work of depraved genius by one of Brazil's most radical twentieth-century writers; imagine the Marquis de Sade as written by Clarice Lespecter

An electrifying masterpiece by one of modern Brazilian literature's most significant and controversial writers, Hilda Hilst takes us into the disorder and beauty of a mind restlessly testing its own limits.

Every month I ingested the body of God, not in the way one swallows green peas or agrostis, or swallows swords, I ingested the body of God the way people do when they know they are swallowing the More, the All, the Incommensurable, for not believing in finitude I would lose myself in absolute infinity...

The Obscene Madame D tells the story of Hillé, a sixty-year-old woman who has decided to abandon conventional life and spend the rest of her days in contemplation in a recess under the stairs. There, she is haunted by the perplexity of her recently deceased lover, Ehud, who cannot understand her rejection of common sense, sex and a simple life in favour of metaphysical speculations that he considers delusional and vain.

In a stream-of-consciousness monologue that's part James Joyce, part Clarice Lispector, and part de Sade, Hillé speaks of her search for spiritual fulfilment from a space of dereliction, as she searches for answers to great questions of life, death and the relationship between body and soul.

Author Biography

Hilda Hilst (1930-2004) was born in Jaú, a small town in the state of São Paulo. She studied law at the University of São Paulo before dedicating herself to writing from 1954. She published novels, poetry and plays and won many prestigious literary prizes, gaining recognition as one of the most significant and controversial figures in Brazilian literature. Letters from a Seducer is also forthcoming from Pushkin Press.

Nathanaël is the author of more than 30 books, including Hatred of Translation (2019), La mort de ma soeur (2018) and the essay of correspondence, Absence Where As (Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book) (2009). Nathanaël's translations include works by Danielle Collobert, Édouard Glissant, Hervé Guibert, Catherine Mavrikakis, and Hilda Hilst.

Rachel Gontijo Araujo speaks Portuguese, writes in English and is located at an unequal distance between. She is the co-founder of the translaton press A Bolha Editora.

Number of Pages: 80

Dimensions: 0.4 x 7.7 x 4.9 IN

Publication Date: May 27, 2025