Name: Monica

Reading: Agua Viva, Clarice Lispector

Why did you want to read this? Because I love Clarice and the cryptic power of her introspective, impressionistic worlds! Her novels and their inhabitants are always so bold & strange. I think she’s a writer who is hyperconscious of language, always searching within it, determined to reconcile it with reality and vice versa. Of her works, this search feels most urgent in Água Viva, and I wanted to feel and share some of this fragmented searching by reading it out loud.

How did you record yourself? At my desk at home in London, with a tea and warm water next to me. I also propped up an Ursula Le Guin book that I’m currently reading, with the author photo facing me, as I was told I would sound better if I read as though speaking to someone.