Biographer of Elizabeth Bishop to Speak

Brazilian novelist and scholar Carmen Oliveira will visit the College on Thursday, October 24, to speak on "Elizabeth Bishop's Brazil: Life in the Country of Carnival." The presentation, which will also feature Oliveira reading from her best-selling biography, Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares, will begin at 7:00 p.m. in Textor 101. A reception and book signing will follow. The event is free and open to the public.

In the early 1950s Bishop, then a relatively obscure poet, left the United States seeking artistic inspiration in Brazil. There she met and fell in love with architect Lota de Macedo Soares. Oliveira's dual biography --- written in a novelistic style --- follows their relationship from its beginning in 1951 to its end 16 years later.

The two lovers started out happily. Bishop wrote some of the most intense poems of her life and Soares embarked on the ambitious project of building and administering Flamengo Park, Rio de Janeiro's equivalent to New York City's Central Park. However, though she had been the driving force behind the park's inception, the ultimate credit that was due her was stripped away because of petty politics and chicanery. As Soares's career declined, Bishop's flourished, and their relationship couldn't survive the strain.

A reviewer in the New York Times wrote, "Rare and Commonplace Flowers has become a Brazilian best-seller, and one can see why. For although the book is superficially an exploration of a love affair, it is also deeply concerned with national identity, the nature of the Brazilian character, and the effort to build Brazilian cities."

Oliveira has taught comparative literature at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. A consultant on gender issues and a professor at the Women's Leadership Center of Rio de Janeiro, she has published articles and reviews in major magazines and newspapers in Brazil. Her second book, Trilhos e Quintais (Tracks and Backyards), is a novel focusing on the condition of women during the Brazilian revolution of 1930.

The event is sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, the Latin American studies program, and the Departments of English, Writing, and Modern Languages and Literatures.

For more information call Gary Fountain, associate professor of English, at 274-1421.