We have complete spoilers for the June 2019 Boxwalla Book Box! Last day to subscribe is 6/1!
Each box includes:
The first book included is the acclaimed Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector’s ‘Besieged City’ that was translated & published in English this April, 70 years after its original publication in 1949. Clarice Lispector is often considered one of the greater modern writers of the 20th century, routinely compared to Nabokov, Joyce and Borges and we are so excited to share one of her books with you.
This gorgeous book is supposed to be one of the most unusual books in Lispector’s oeuvre, following the life of a woman named Lucrécia, in that it focuses more on the external world rather than the internal as her novels usually do. However, the external is also woven with such intricate detail that the tapestry that emerges is as satisfying as her more typical works.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Lucrécia Neves would never be beautiful. She had however a surplus of beauty that doesn’t exist in pretty people. The hair upon which the fantastic hat rested was ample; and the many black spots spread out in the light of her skin gave her an external tone to be touched by fingers. Only her straight eyebrows ennobled her face, where something vulgar existed like a barely sensitive sign of the future of her narrow and deep soul. Her whole nature didn’t seem to reveal itself: it was a habit of hers to lean forward when talking to people, her eyes half closed – she’s seem then, like the township itself, excited by an event that wasn’t set in motion. Her face was inexpressive unless a thought made it hesitate.”
The second book is a book that is perhaps the most anticipated release in American fiction this year. And also one of the most anticipated fiction debut in years : Vietnamese American writer Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’. This book is a letter from a son to his mother. A mother who emigrated with her mother and son from Vietnam to the U.S. A book that deals with immigration, race, discovering one’s identity, yet saying that doesn’t quite convey the extent of its beauty.
Here’s an excerpt:
“In a previous draft of this letter, one I’ve since deleted, I told you how I came to be a writer. How I, the first in the family to go to college, squandered it on a degree in English, with which no career is promised. How I fled my shitty high school to spend my days in New York lost in library stacks, reading obscure texts by dead people, most of whom never dreamed a face like mine floating over their sentences-and least of all that those sentences would save me. But none of that matters now. What matters is that all of it, even if I didn’t know it then, brought me here, to this page, to tell you everything you’ll never know.”
Cost of the box : $29.95. Retail Value : $49.95
What do you think of this month’s Boxwalla Book Box spoilers?
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