The Obscene Madame D by Hilda Hilst

The Obscene Madame D by Hilda Hilst

The Obscene Madame D is the first work by acclaimed Brazilian author Hilda Hilst to be published in English. Radically irreverent and formally impious, this novel portrays an unyielding radical intelligence, a sixty-year-old woman who decides to live in the recess under the stairs. In her diminutive space, Madame D--for dereliction--relives the perplexity of her recently deceased lover who cannot comprehend her rejection of common sense, sex, and a simple life, in favor of metaphysical speculations that he supposes to be delusional and vain.

'This brief, lyrical and scalding account of a mind unhinged recalls the passionate urgency of Artaud and de Sades waking dreams in which sex and death are forever conjoined and loves "vivid time" irretrievably lost' - Rikki Ducornet

'Like her friend and admirer Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst was a passionate explorer of the sacred and the profane, the pure and the obscene, and shows, in this discomfiting, hypnotic work, just how rarely those categories are what they seem' - Benjamin Moser

'Consider this your personal message of recommendation from me to you to read Hilda Hilst, as much as you canThe Obscene Madame D. is the most striking account of aging, grieving and dwelling youll read. More honest for its strangeness than any conventional text... After reading any Hilst your body and mind will make more and less sense to each other. Your verbal and sensorial understandings will alter, youll slap your thigh and yell at the shock of a line, youll feel drunk, ungodly and fantastically free.' - Holly Pester, author of 'The Lodgers'

'Hilst wrote with the ink of melancholy, the quill of playfulness, and, above all, a human body-a womans body' - Victor Heringer, author of 'The Love of Singular Men'

'Hilsts books were about the beauty of the unknowable - and if human reason, the great loser in this story, remains incapable of seeing it, so much the worse for it' - Daniel Galera, author of 'Blood-Drenched Beard'

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 available from Pushkin Press.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781805331360
ISBN 10	1805331361
Title	The Obscene Madame D
Author	Hilda Hilst
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Pushkin Press
Year published	2025-05-22
Number of pages	80
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.