Hilda Hilst was born on April 21, 1930, in Jaú, in the state of São Paulo. In 1952, he graduated in law, but only practiced for one year and decided to dedicate himself exclusively to literature. Later, he married the sculptor Dante Casarini, and they moved to Casa do Sol, a place that became a meeting place for artists.
The writer, who died on February 4, 2004, in Campinas, had a life dedicated mainly to poetry, but, also, she wrote narratives and plays. Her works are characterized by interior monologue, eroticism and existential questions.
Read too: Cora Coralina – poet from Goiás whose work is not attributed to any literary school
Hilda Hilst Biography
Hilda Hilst was born on April 21, 1930, in Jaú, in the state of São Paulo. Her mother — Bedecilda Vaz Cardoso — was Portuguese, and her father — Apolônio de Almeida Prado Hilst — was a coffee producer and writer. When the couple separated in 1932, the poet's mother, with her children, moved to the city of Santos. Three years later, Apollonius was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
the writer she started to study, in a boarding school, at the Santa Marcelina nuns' school, in the city of São Paulo, in 1937. Upon leaving the boarding school, in 1944, she started to live in the house of Mrs. Ana Ivanovna, still in São Paulo. The following year, she began her studies at the Mackenzie Presbyterian Institute.
She joined the Largo de São Francisco Law School in 1948. The following year, he met the writer and friend Lygia Fagundes Telles. In 1950, she published her first book of poetry: Omen. When she became her father's curator in 1951, she was a year away from her law school.
From 1953 to 1954, she worked at a law firm, but she realized that she had no talent for law and that she should dedicate herself exclusively to literature. So, after taking a trip to Chile and Argentina, she returned to live with her mother. However, in 1957, she decided to live in Paris for six months, and in 1960, she was in New York.
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After meeting the sculptor Dante Casarini in 1963, the two began a romantic relationship. However, the following year, the military coup took place, and the dictatorship was installed in the country. That same year, Hilda Hilst hosted physicist Mário Schemberg (1914-1990) in her house, in São Paulo, as he was being persecuted for being on the left.
Hilda decided, in 1965, to live with Dante Casarini on her mother's farm in Campinas. She named the house she built there Casa do Sol. Thus, in 1968, she married Casarini, under pressure from her mother, as the writer did not believe in marital fidelity nor did she want to have children. They divorced in 1985, but the then ex-husband remained at Casa do Sol until 1991, as they remained united by the bonds of friendship.
It was in 1968 that Hilda Hilst met the writer Caio Fernando Abreu(1948-1996), with whom she developed a great friendship. Beyond, other artists lived at Casa do Sol, which has become a cultural stronghold. Among them, José Luís Mora Fuentes (1951-2009), Olga Bilenky and Edson Costa Duarte.
The poetess, before dying, on February 4, 2004, in Campinas, won several awards:
- São Paulo Pen Club (1962)
- Anchieta (1969)
- APCA (1977)
- APCA (1981)
- Tortoise (1984)
- Cassiano Ricardo (1985)
- Tortoise (1994)
- APCA (2003)
Read too:Clarice Lispector – writer who explored the epiphany in her works
Literary characteristics of the work of Hilda Hilst
Hilda Hilst is considered an author belongs to third generation modernist (or postmodernism). Therefore, her works have characteristics such as:
- stream of consciousness
- existential issues
- intimate character
- fragmentation
However, the author's works have some peculiarities:
- Irony
- Eroticism
- Hermeticism
- obscene language
- Focus on the female universe
- Nonlinear Narrative
- Mix of literary genres
- Use of words from different languages
Works by Hilda Hilst
- Omen (1950)
- Alzira's Ballad (1951)
- festival ballad (1955)
- script of silence (1959)
- Thunders of a lot of love for a dear sir (1961)
- fragmentary ode (1961)
- Seven songs from the poet to the angel (1962)
- the possessed (1967)
- the mouse on the wall (1967)
- the visitor (1968)
- Camiri's ferry car (1968)
- the new system (1968)
- night birds (1968)
- the executioner (1969)
- the death of the patriarch (1969)
- flow-phloem (1970)
- Qados (1973)
- Jubilation, memory, novitiate of passion (1974)
- fictions (1977)
- Poetry (1980)
- Of death: minimal odes (1980)
- Songs of loss and predilection (1980)
- you don't move from yourself (1980)
- the obscene lady D (1982)
- Damned, joyful and devout poems (1984)
- about your big face (1986)
- With my dog eyes and other novels (1986)
- love you (1989)
- alcoholic (1990)
- Lori Lamby's Pink Notebook (1990)
- tales of derision (1990)
- letters from a seducer (1991)
- buffaloes (1992)
- of desire (1992)
- Rutile nothing (1993)
- Songs of the nameless and of departures (1995)
- Being being. have been (1997)
- Hoofs and caresses (1998)
- Of love (1999)
the obscene lady D
![Cover of the book “A obscena Senhora D”, by Hilda Hilst, published by Companhia das Letras.[1]](/f/d1c9d1543940c4d08d8262311b231956.jpg)
The book The obscene Ms. D is considered a soap opera, due to its size, that is, it is not short as a tale not as long as one romance. The work features a narrator-character whose name is Hillé. She starts the narrative like this:
"I found myself far from the center of something I don't know how to name, that's not why I'll go to the sacristy, incestuous theophagus, that's not it, me too Hillé called by Ehud Lady D, I Nothing, I Nobody's Name, I looking for light in silent blindness, sixty years looking for the meaning of stuff. Dereliction Ehud told me, Derection — for the last time Hillé, Derection means helplessness, abandonment, and because you ask me every day and don't hold back, from now on I call you Mrs. D.”
The beginning of the work already shows its poetic character, the careful work with the language, and also announces the complexity of the protagonist, who, at age 60, is given over to helplessness, to abandonment. Thus, the work is marked by the stream of consciousness of the narrator character, who maintains a dialogue with the memory of Ehud — the deceased companion — and loneliness.
Another feature of the soap opera is the endless character questions, existential doubts, in addition to the long periods with which she unravels her thoughts:
"It would support being alive, cropped, an incomprehensible outline repeating every day steps, words, the eye on the books, countless truths thrown into the toilet, and filthy lies displayed as truths, and appearances out of nowhere, sterile repetitions, farces, the daily life of the man of mine century? and despite this dust of dust, all blindness, the miscarriage of the days, the non-light within my matter, the immense unbearable deeps nostalgia of having loved the I enjoy the earth, the flesh of the other, the fur, the salt, the boat that carried me, some mornings of quiet and knowledge, some very brief afternoons of love. splashing juices over her face, rosy face of youth and vivacity, and another face of gentle maturity, absorbing what she saw, slowly, the ears listening without resentment."
Thus, after the death of his partner, Hillé ends up making a rescue of your own existence as a woman, and, through memories, she seeks the meaning of her own life.
Read too: Anguish: novel by Graciliano Ramos
Hilda Hilst's Phrases
Below, we are going to read some sentences by Hilda Hilst, taken from an interview the author gave to Popular Mail, in 1989:
- "When you reach an extreme limit, you look for some paths of salvation."
- "Every man somehow wants to matter."
- "It's no use being important and not having anyone to look at you."
- "The act of thinking always provokes a dislike in the person."
- "From the beginning, man has done everything to put on a mask, to deceive himself, as if he were not a being who is heading towards death."
- "I want to write and I could only write all this because I didn't say it, I stayed at home writing."
Image credit
[1] Company of Letters (reproduction)
by Warley Souza
Literature teacher
