HELENA AND ELIZABETH The Diary of "Helena Morley", translated from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Bishop
The Church of the Rosary in Diamantina, Minas Gerais, Brazil Re-reading Helena Morley thirty years later, the stories grow in beauty and truth. The Brazilian mining town of Diamantina, obscure and remote in itself, returns to rich social life, just as Candleford and Lark Rise do in Flora Thompson's books. There is even an element of Daisy Ashford about Helena, though Helena's spelling is better than Daisy's and she has no interest in fictionalising her own people. Adolescent perception of adults in their adult world is determined by the necessities of dependence and self-learning. The twelve-year-old who opens her Diary for the year 1893 is secure and free, free enough to say almost anything within the limits of her experience, secure enough to speak of her microcosmic world in knowing terms. Helena was fortunate in her English translator. Elizabeth Bishop, as her poetry shows over again, relishes the colour and detail of the physical world. This is enabled f...