[3][4] In addition to being a lawyer, Lygia was widely represented in postmodernism, and her works portrayed classic and universal themes such as death, love, fear and madness, as well as fantasy.

[5] Born in São Paulo, and educated as a lawyer, she began publishing soon after she completed high school and simultaneously worked as a solicitor and writer throughout most of her career.

Winner of all important literary awards in Brazil, honored nationally and internationally, in 2016, at the age of 98, she became the first Brazilian woman to be nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

[12] Simultaneously, she began working for the government, with the Secretary of Agriculture, as well as writing her second book of short stories, Praia Viva (Living Beach), which she published in 1944.

[14] In 1960, Telles divorced,[10] and the following year began working as a solicitor for the Institute of Providence (Portuguese: Instituto de Providência) of the State of São Paulo.

[7] In 1962, she married, the film critic and writer Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes [pt], though as divorce was not technically recognized in Brazil at that time, their partnership was considered socially unacceptable.

She led the delegation, composed of historian Hélio Silva [pt] and the writers Nélida Piñon and Jefferson Ribeiro de Andrade to present the signed petition to Armando Falcão, the Justice Minister in the cabinet of President Ernesto Geisel.

[25][26][27][28] A public wake was held at the Academia Paulista de Letras and her body was cremated the following day at Vila Alpina Cemetery in São Paulo.