Lispector was a Brazilian author of fiction. She was born Chaya Lispector in 1920 Ukraine to Jewish parents, Pinkhas Lispector and Mania Krimgold Lispector. When she was still an infant, the family fled Ukraine during the dissolution of the Russian empire. They relocated to the northeastern city of Maceió in Brazil’s Alagoas region. She and her family members changed their names shortly after immigrating, and Chaya became Clarice. She continued living in Alagoas with her parents and sisters until her father moved the family to Rio de Janeiro to find better work and to seek Jewish husbands for his daughters. Lispector’s mother died at age 42, and her father died at 55.

In 1937, Lispector enrolled in law school at the prestigious Law School of the University of Brazil. While earning her degree, she became interested in writing and started to work as a journalist. She first began to write for the official government press service, the Agência Nacional, and later worked for the newspaper A Noite. Meanwhile, she cultivated an interest in writing fiction and published her first short story, “Triunfo,” in Pan magazine in May 1940. In addition, she fell in love twice during this era, marrying her second love, a law school colleague and Brazilian diplomat, Maury Gurgel Valente.