Água Viva

Água Viva (Portuguese: [ˌa.ɡwɐˈvi.vɐ]) is a 1973 novel by the Brazilian author Clarice Lispector. The novel has an unconventional form and uses no other form of structure other than double paragraph breaks, lacking chapters or sections. It also does not feature conventional plot or named characters and is framed as a directionless monologue from an artist, perhaps speaking to a lover, the public, or the work itself. In the novel, Lispector states that her goal is to fire "an arrow that will sink into the tender and neuralgic centre of the word". In Portuguese, Água Viva literally means "living water", a meaning that has been linked to the novel's fluid prose by some critics, but generally denotes the oceanic animal known in English as jellyfish. In its first translation into English, published in 1989, it was titled Stream of Life.