Each poem begins with a quote from Lispector’s letters to Fernando Sabino. The poems were written while Novey was translating The Passion According to G.H.

Idra Novey is an American novelist, poet, and translator. She translates from Portuguese, Spanish, and Persian. She is the translator of The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, On Elegance While Sleeping by Viscount Lascano Tegui, Birds for a Demolition by Manoel de Barros, and The Clean Shirt of It. She is the author of the novels Those Who Knew (2018) and Ways to Disappear (2016).Her fiction and poetry have been translated into ten languages. She has received awards from Poets & Writers, the Poetry Foundation, the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize, and the National Endowment of the Arts.