The texts that comprise this volume were selected from Helene Cixous's seminars on the work of Clarice Lispector. They reflect Cixous's own meditations on problems of reading and writing, and on related themes such as exchange and the gift, love and passion, as well as trace the influence of Lispector's work on her own development. Reading the Brazilian writer from the vantage point of modern theory, Cixous aims to draw her into the mainstream of current debates which question the concept of the so-called rational "Cartesian" individual and which note the increasing power of the social and applied sciences that seek to establish control over the individual. The book includes extracts of Clarice Lispector's prose writing, such as "The Apple in the Dark - The Temptations of Understanding" and "The Hour of the Star:How Does One Desire Wealth or Poverty?".