Maria Carlota Costallat de Macedo Soares (1910 – September 25, 1967) was a Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian aesthete who conceived and constructed the Flamengo Park

Flamengo Park

Also known as Aterro do Flamengo, the Brigadeiro Eduardo Gomes Park is the largest leisure area of Rio de Janeiro. The place has a strong sport tradition. Flamengo Park is the arrival point of marathons, besides being one of the main segments of Rio's Cycling Race, a Latin American race that allots...

 in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

. She was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, a member of a prominent political family in Rio de Janeiro state.

Lota, as she was known, maintained a lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 relationship with the American poet Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...

 from 1951 to 1967.

In 1967, Soares followed Bishop back to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, having recovered from an ailment with extensive hospitalization. The same day she arrived in New York, 19 September 1967, Soares took effective steps to commit suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 by overdosing on tranquilizer

Tranquilizer

A tranquilizer, or tranquilliser , is a drug that induces tranquility in an individual.The term "tranquilizer" is imprecise, and is usually qualified, or replaced with more precise terms:...

s, and died several days later.

For more information

• http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/bishop/about.htm
• Elizabeth Bishop, One Art: Letters. Ed. Robert Giroux (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1994).
• Carmen L. Oliveira, Rare and Commonplace Flowers: The Story of Elizabeth Bishop and Lota de Macedo Soares, translated by Neil K. Besner, (Rutgers University Press, 2002); reviewed by Emily Nussbaum http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E1D81F3BF93AA35755C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
• Schuma Schumacher and Érico Vital Brasil, eds. Dicionário Mulheres do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editora, 2000), pp. 335-336.