Li Sipeike Duo's Children's Stories: Starting with the Death of a Little Fish

A tender and affectionate work by Clarice Lispector, a top Latin American author

A mother unafraid to speak the truth

Cautious yet unreserved

Touching upon life's joys and sorrows

◎ Editor's Recommendations

Hailed as "the most important Jewish writer since Kafka" and one of the most important Brazilian writers of the 20th century

Clarice Lispector, a beautiful and outstanding female writer

Writes with a mother's heart for her children in the "Clarice Lispector's Childlike Stories" series

5 children's literature works, published in Chinese for the first time

A mother unafraid to speak the truth, sincerely repenting

For the death of two small fish due to her oversight

And recalling the animals that accompanied her throughout her life

From accidental encounters to inevitable partings

Faint sadness, deep affection

Animals and humans alike are precious lives

☆ Literary nourishment for children from a top author, with an intimate and lively oral narrative style, full of interactive fun.

Told from a first-person perspective, in a mother's voice, it's as intimate and interactive as fireside chats. In the process of storytelling, Lispector, as a mother, always attends to her child's emotions, responds to their specific questions, and tries to align with their thoughts and imagination, allowing the child listeners to enjoy participating.

☆ A lighthearted, interesting, and profound life education, inspiring children's empathy and teaching them to cherish life.

Through personal experiences, it gently teaches children to care for animals and cherish life, without being preachy or making topics like death and separation too heavy.

Starting with animals, it expands to help children connect with other cherished people and things, guiding them to try and feel how to accept unexpected loss, face unintended mistakes, and view unavoidable death, regrets, and separations in life.

The text is full of emotion, interesting, and doesn't shy away from true feelings, inspiring children to be more empathetic and learn to observe and understand animals and people.

☆ "Small matters in adult eyes, big matters in a child's heart," inspiring adult readers to understand the child's world.

For adults, it's a small matter not worth explaining—just a mother too busy with work who forgot to feed and change the water for the fish, and buying two new fish would suffice to appease her son. But in a child's heart, this could be a major event that stings their little hearts and leaves lasting scars. Lispector's sincere writing about such "small matters in adult eyes, big matters in a child's heart" can inspire adult readers to perceive children's feelings and understand their world from a child's perspective.

☆ Retro collage illustrations by the author's granddaughter, taking us across time and space to the author.

The illustrator of this book, Mariana Valente, is Clarice Lispector's granddaughter. She created the illustrations for this book to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Lispector's death, using a unique collage technique that incorporates many precious old photos of Lispector herself, creating a fresh, elegant, and retro style with unique artistic aesthetics. Readers can get closer to the author and her narration through the past life objects and scenes in the images.

☆ Special lenticular cover, spacious square format, exquisitely bound in a retro style, offering children a precious literary gift.

This book is one of the "Clarice Lispector's Childlike Stories" series. The entire series features specially designed lenticular covers, full of dynamic beauty, enhancing the fun and design sense of the book's binding.

The cover paper uses white kraft paper, with an elegant and retro tone, exuding a classic literary atmosphere.

The 12K spacious square format, with inner pages using 140g offset paper, is thick and textured; full-color printing reproduces various styles of illustrations.

☆ Includes a professional guide, written by Zhang Xiaofei, a senior Portuguese translator and associate university professor, to help readers deeply interpret the work.

◎ Content Introduction

The Death of the Little Fish, originally published in 1968, is a book about loss, animals, and a mother who isn't afraid to tell the truth.

The story begins with Lispector throwing out a contradictory suspense: she is an animal lover, someone who wouldn't even kill a small caterpillar, yet she accidentally killed her son's two red fish—what exactly happened?

She says she will explain the whole story at the end of the book, but for the beginning and middle, please allow her to tell some stories about other animals she has kept—she feels this will make readers believe she didn't do it on purpose, and then they can decide whether to forgive her.

So the story unfolds as if it were told from her mouth: the cat sent away by the family, the mysterious and strange lizard, the chicks that died one by one after leaving their mother hen, dogs with different personalities, the well-behaved but unfortunate monkey... The animals in her life appear one after another, and memories both warm and sad temporarily divert the reader's attention from "the death of the little fish," preparing her to bravely tell the reason.

Finally, she admits her mistake: due to being busy with work, she forgot to feed and change the water for the two fish her son entrusted to her for three consecutive days. She feels deeply guilty but knows it's too late—"Will you forgive me?" The story ends abruptly here.

◎ Media Recommendations

(Lispector) was predicted from the outset to become "the greatest female writer in Portuguese," and her half-century of writing practice indeed earned her ultimate accolades such as "the greatest Jewish writer since Kafka" and "Brazil's Joyce"...

—— Min Xuefei (Translator of Lispector's works)

Clarice Lispector's children's works are innovative because they can address children's issues in a non-childish way, with an understanding of children as the constant underlying tone.

—— Rosa Gens (PhD in Literature, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)

I thought my 2-year-old son wouldn't be able to pay attention because it's a book with a lot of text. This book explores the issue of death with children, but its language is easy to understand and also interesting. My son and I read it to the end, and I think he will like this book even more in the next year or two.

—— Amazon reader review (mom)

This edition is fantastic, hardcover, and has collages made by Clarice's granddaughter. I gave it to my niece for her 8th birthday. We read it together, and she later reread it on her own because she was captivated by Clarice and her little animals. I highly recommend it!

—— Amazon reader review

◎ Celebrity Recommendations

One of the most mysterious writers of the twentieth century, her writing is full of vivid colors.

—— Orhan Pamuk (Nobel Prize in Literature laureate)

◎ Awards

Won the Carmen Dolores Prize and the Calouste Gulbenkian Prize.

2022-12-01

上海人民美术出版社

the new wave

48

9787558624377