This is a fictional account of a woman's attempt to escape from conventional time and exist instead in a perpetually renewing "this instant-now". Lispector pursued this same seemingly impossible aim through a number of books - getting closer and closer to the confused and thrilling feeling of fully conscious aliveness. Água Viva is where she succeeds most amazingly.--Toby Litt "The Guardian" (9/25/2019 12:00:00 AM)

This is a book that, like a good painting, can be picked up anywhere and that will continue to reward renewed contact over months and years of acquaintance.--Scott Esposito "Barnes & Noble Review" (6/21/2012 12:00:00 AM)

Her images dazzle even when her meaning is most obscure, and when she is writing of what she despises she is lucidity itself.-- "The Times Literary Supplement" (6/21/2012 12:00:00 AM)

One of 20th-century Brazil's most intriguing and mystifying writers.-- "The L Magazine"