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The first English-language translation of the second volume in Hilda Hilst's dynamic and unnerving erotic-pornographic trilogy
About the author
HILDA HILST (1930–2004) is recognized as one of the most important and controversial names in Brazilian contemporary literature and received some of Brazil's most prestigious literary prizes. JOHN KEENE, author of Annotations, is on the faculty of Rutgers University, Newark. BRUNO CARVALHO is assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures at Princeton University.
Summary
In Letters from a Seducer, Hilst describes the everyday life of Karl, a wealthy, erudite, and amoral man who seeks an answer to his incomprehension of life through sex. Karl writes and sends twenty provocative letters to Cordelia, his chaste sister. The letters’ text becomes intertwined with the life of the poet Stamatius, who finds Karl’s letters in the trash. It quickly dawns upon the reader that both men are in fact the same person albeit at different points of time and circumstance. This mirror play is the guiding trope for a uniquely grand work.
Additional text
“Hilda Hilst’s characters are often revealed in the state of Bewusstsein: “much more Awareness than consciousness".... I remain in awe of this book, stimulated through its powerfully rich and expansive arcade. John Keene’s beautiful translation of Hilda Hilst’s Letters from a Seducer couples the orgasmic with the writerly, the book edging between filth and feeling.”—Ronaldo V. Wilson
