"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. . . . Rare and Commonplace Flowers performs an invaluable service: unforgettably memorializing the remarkable Lota de Macedo Soares, and in the process filling in a crucial gap in Bishops biography. . . . This book helps put . . . [Bishops] writing in useful context. It honors a deeply moving love between two brilliant women: each highly public, a celebrity in her own nation; each deeply private, and happy (for a time) in the fragile heaven of their home."The New York Times Book Review

"Novelist Oliveiras engaging dual biography tells of [Bishops and Soaress] long and sad relationship. . . . This book offers a new perspective on the American poet, and the love story between these two women is undeniably intense and tragic. Recommended."Library Journal

"Rare and Commonplace Flowers . . . is lively, witty, fast and fascinating, which is no doubt why it became a best-seller in Brazil, where it was first published in 1995. It also raised a storm of controversy because it spoke frankly about the erotic nature of their relationship. . . . The book is extremely well researched, particularly on Lota . . . and on the social and political world of Brazil. Carmen Oliveira interviewed many of the couples friends, particularly Lotas surviving Brazilian friends, and clearly has an intimate knowledge of Bishops letters, on which she relies. All this makes the book extremely valuable, giving us much that is new. . . . As a portrait of Lota and Bishop in Brazil, Rare and Commonplace Flowers is a rare and illuminating book. As a work of scholarship, it may be read with a critical eye but with a generous heart."

"When Rare and Commonplace Flowers was first published in Brazil in 1995, it was a best-seller. One can guess why. More than American readers of this book will, Brazilians must have relished Oliveiras account of the political chicanery that Lota fought and was defeated by. . . . Theirs is a touching love story and one that defied the hostility of Lotas friends before and especially after her death, toward Bishop, whom they thought had lured Lota away from her native roots. . . . Rare and Commonplace Flowers tries to fill in between the lines the contextsometimes calm, sometimes tumultuousof [Bishops] poems. It gives us the facts, but not an explanation. The poems and their author still seem like one of those clouds that used to float by the window of Bishops study in Petrópolishuge and translucent, intimate and remote, gone as you grasp for it."Out

"Despite the concerns he articulates in the preface about translating Oliveiras writing and having it sound like a stilted report, Besner clearly succeeds in conveying the books original intent: a biography that explicitly confesses its desires to be a novel while at the same time drawing on the kind of research one would expect of a biography. This work offers many insights into the personalities of the two artists."Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)

"We are fortunate indeed to have this wonderful, intimate book, Rare and Commonplace Flowers, Carmen Oliveiras account of the friendship between Lota de Macedo Soares and the poet Elizabeth Bishop. The lucid and always sensitive translation by scholar Neil Besner now brings this poignant story to English-speaking readers."Carol Shields, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Stone Diaries

"This fascinating story of an impassioned relationship offers a glimpse behind the scenesinside the infrastructure of Soaress architecture, beneath the designs in Bishops poems."Robin Morgan

"A vivid and compelling story, suffused with lifes exhilaration and poignant anguish."Catharine Stimpson, New York University

"Rare and Commonplace Flowers is a unique, fascinating, imaginative, surprising, funny, tragic, and brilliantly researched book. This new and complete translation of a book that was a sensation when first published in Brazil is a very special and a very welcome achievement."Thomas Travisano, cofounder and first president of the Elizabeth Bishop Society and author of Elizabeth Bishop: Her Artistic Development

Rare and Commonplace Flowers (a Brazilian best-seller) tells the story of two women. Elizabeth Bishop, the Pulitzer Prizewinning American poet, sought artistic inspiration in Brazil. There she met and fell in love with Lota de Macedo Soares, a self-trained Brazilian architect. This dual biographybrilliantly researched, and written in a lively, novelistic stylefollows their relationship from 1951 to 1967, the time when the two lived together in Brazil. The fact that these two women had an intimate relationship caused an uproar when it first came to public notice.

The relationship started out happily, yet ended tragically. In 1961, Soares became increasingly obsessed with building and administering Flamengo Park, Rio de Janeiros equivalent to New York Citys Central Park. Though she had been the driving force behind the parks inception, the ultimate credit that was due her was stripped away because of petty politics and chicanery. As Soaress career declined and Bishops flourished, their relationship crumbled.

Rare and Commonplace Flowers is a tale of two artists and two cultures, offering unique perspectives on both women and their work. Carmen L. Oliveira provides an unparalleled level of detail and insight, due to both her familiarity with Brazil as well as her access to the countrys artistic elite, many of whom had a direct connection with Bishop and Soares. Rare pictures of the two artists and their home bring this unique story to life.

Carmen L. Oliveira is a Brazilian novelist. Neil K. Besner is a professor in the English department at the University of Winnipeg in Canada.