By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
The Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short-story writer Clarice Lispector (1920-77) has not had as much attention as her fellow titans of South American literature, Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez. But her short stories are often dazzlingly inventive and, like the best of Borges, carry the force of a miniature parable or fable.
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
‘The Fifth Story’ is a 1964 short story by the Ukrainian-born Brazilian novelist and short-story writer Clarice Lispector (1920-77). In the story, a narrator describes how she prepared a recipe of sugar, flour, and plaster in order to get rid of a cockroach infestation. However, this simple event is described in five different ways, with the story gaining significance with each new telling of it.