The Obscene Madame D is the electrifying masterpiece by one of modern Brazilian literature's most significant and controversial writers. At sixty years old, Hillé decides to abandon conventional life and devote the rest of her days to contemplation in a recess under the stairs. There, she is haunted by her perplexed, recently deceased lover, Ehud, who cannot understand her rejection of common sense, sex and a simple life in favour of vain metaphysical speculations. In a stream-of-consciousness monologue, Hillé speaks of her search for spiritual fulfilment from a space of dereliction. In thrilling prose that is part Joyce, part Lispector and part de Sade, Hilda Hilst takes us into the disorder and beauty of a mind restlessly testing its own limits.

"Like her fellow Brazilian Clarice Lispector, Hilda Hilst creates interior worlds of hallucinogenic surrealism to explore and understand the world on its own strange terms"
—Book Beat

"Like a fever dream wrapped in philosophical inquiry... Hilst's prose marries the lyrical with the visceral... A book that refuses to be forgotten"
—Scene Mag

"Slim and profane... This book felt like sinking into a fever dream, and achieved the rare feat of both making me laugh out loud and sending me into a philosophical spiral."
—The Conversationalist

Hilda Hilst (1930-2004) was born in Jaú, a small town in the state of São Paulo. She studied law at the University of São Paulo before dedicating herself to writing from 1954. She published novels, poetry and plays and won many prestigious literary prizes, gaining recognition as one of the most significant and controversial figures in Brazilian literature. Letters from a Seducer is also available from Pushkin Press.