The Apple in the Dark

<p>In the mistaken belief that he has killed his wife, Martim flees the city and arrives, in a state of both fear and wonder, at a remote ranch. There, he will have to remake himself, emerging, from the beast-like state in which his crime has plunged him, to the fullness of a reinvented humanity. Along the way, he will mark the lives of the two women who run the ranch, brambly, authoritarian Vitória and her weepy cousin Ermelinda. But the real drama is interior: Clarice Lispector's most wrenching, and most intoxicating, exploration of how a man becomes a human - and of how language can transform a life into a destiny.<br><br>A highly sculpted, metaphysical book whose mysteries and allegories glow with a scintillating light, <i>Apple in the Dark</i> is a masterpiece by 'one of the hidden geniuses of the twentieth century' (Colm Tóibín).<br><br>Translated by Benjamin Moser.</p> <p><b>Described by Clarice Lispector as 'the best one', this intoxicating portrayal of a man searching for his destiny is her mystical, enigmatic masterpiece</b><br><br>'All I've got is hunger. And that instable way of grasping an apple in the dark-without letting it fall'<br><br>Martim, believing that he has committed a murder, flees the city and escapes into the night. Wandering through the vastness of nature he arrives, in a state of fear and wonder, at a remote ranch run by two women. There Martim finds work and, as he labours in the blistering heat of the Brazilian summer, becomes transfigured; remade into something else entirely.<br><br>Translated by Benjamin Moser <br><br>'The most important Brazilian woman writer of the twentieth century... The richness of <i>The Apple in the Dark</i> defies the explanatory power of any single interpretation' <i>TLS</i></p>