Partner Elizabeth Bishop
Queer Places:
Parque do Flamengo, Como chegar de Metrô. - Praia do Flamengo, 116 - Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro - RJ, 22210-030, Brasile
Fazenda Samambaia, Estr. da Samambaia, 138 - Samambaia, Petrópolis - RJ, 25710-372, Brasile
Maria
Carlota Costallat de Macedo Soares (March 16, 1910 – September 25, 1967)
was a well-connected
Brazilian
woman who became a well-known landscape designer and architect. Despite having
no degree in either area,[1]
she was invited by governor Carlos Lacerda to design and oversee the
construction of
Flamengo Park in
Rio de Janeiro. She was born in
Paris,
France into
a prominent, political family from
Rio de Janeiro.
Lota, as she was known, had a relationship with the American poet Elizabeth Bishop from 1951 to 1967.[2] Bishop dedicated her 1965 volume of poems Questions of Travel to her. Their relationship is depicted in the Brazilian film Reaching for the Moon, based on the book Flores Raras e Banalíssimas (in English, Rare and Commonplace Flowers), by Carmen Lucia de Oliveira, as well as in the book The More I Owe You, by American author Michael Sledge.
In 1967, Soares joined Bishop in New York, after a period of extensive hospitalization for a nervous breakdown. The same day she arrived in New York, 19 September 1967, Soares took an overdose of tranquilizers. It is believed the problems with her work and her failing relationship with Elizabeth Bishop were what sent her over the edge. She died several days later.
Her relationship with Elizabeth Bishop and with the politician Carlos Lacerda, as well as her involvement in the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état, is the subject of the 2013 film Reaching for the Moon, directed by Bruno Barreto and starring Gloria Pires, and of Michael Sledge's 2010 novel The More I Owe You.[3]
My published books:
