[The] Brazil in which Bishop so recently lived is already of another era. The early days which the poet spent in the emperor's old summer resort, Petropolis, represented a kind of latter-day Golden Age of Brazilian letters. Bishop was personally acquainted with a good number of the nation's most famous writers, many of whom had been active in the extremely important Modern Art Week of 1922, which sought to make Brazilian literature, painting and music more true to contemporary realities as well as native roots….

By 1971, when she left the country to resume life in the US, Brazil had undergone a significant number of profound changes. Most of the great artists were dead, and so, in a sense, was Brazil's age of innocence. While authoritarianism and economic dependency coupled with severe poverty for a large percentage of the populace are problems which have plagued Brazil throughout its history, the...