Near to the Wild Heart opens with a scene of the child Joana playing in the garden, making up poems for her father. Joana's wildness and barely suppressed violence, along with her linguistic creativity, are her most notable features. She is frequently compared to animals: over the course of the book Lispector compares her to a bird, a snake, a wildcat, a horse, and a dog. She commits transgressive acts—as a child she throws a book at an old man's head, for example, and as a married woman she leaves her husband, Otávio, and greets the news of his adultery—he has made another woman, his
A Woman in Morocco a charismatic and morally pliable Moroccan in his late 20s named Ahmed sips tea while musing about his life and listening to the radio. Teddy Forsythe, a British expatriate in his late 40s, owner of the Cypress, ushers in Lizzy Forsythe, an American investigative journalist in her early 20s. Alone in her room, she writes a letter to her sister Clare. Ahmed delivers water; there is an immediate attraction. Asilah, an intellectually inquisitive Arab woman working as a maid, delivers linens; Lizzy gives her a book of poetry to read. A few days later, in the Courtyard, Lizzy accidentally witnesses