In 1963, Elizabeth Bishop unwittingly provided the Brazilian fiction writer Clarice Lispector with an ideal blurb: "I think she is better than J. L. Borges--who is good, but not all that good!" Bishop wrote in a letter to her friends Ilse and Kit Barker. Bishop and Lispector had met in Rio de Janeiro, where they were both so well known that they were often referred to by first name only. Their acquaintance lasted about two years, from 1962 to 1964, during which time Bishop translated several of Lispector's stories; those English translations were the first of Lispector's to appear in print. Bishop wrote to Robert Lowell of the experience: "I not only like her stories very much but like her, too." She also wrote in other exchanges to him that Lispector was "provincial," "bad," and "hopeless, really." She confided, "I suppose we are going to be 'friends,' but she's the most non-literary writer I've ever known, and 'never cracks a book.'"
Bishop is often cited as a herald of Lispector's talent, but Lispector--nearly ten years younger, well connected, elusive--got under her skin like no other writer. Bishop arrived in Rio in 1952, intending to go for a short visit, but ended up staying to live with Lota de Macedo Soares, a self-trained architect and the daughter of Brazilian aristocrats. Bishop remained in Brazil for almost 15 years. She organized anthologies of Brazilian poetry, wrote articles on local affairs for the New York Times, and completed the entry on Brazil for the Life World Library. Many of her poems are directly linked to her time there, such as "Arrival at Santos," "Manuelzinho," and "The Burglar of Babylon." The years she spent in Brazil also led to plenty of bitterness, no example more salient than her short-lived kinship with Lispector.
Read the full essay with images on the Poetry Foundation website.