The Diary of "Helena Morley"

By Helena Morley

Book Overview

In 1952, soon after her arrival in Brazil, Elizabeth Bishop asked her new Brazilian friends which of their country's books she should read. They recommended Minha Vida de Menina - a diary kept by a young girl who lived in a mining town at the end of the nineteenth century. As a labor of love, Elizabeth Bishop devoted three years to translating the diary, a delightful account of a young girl's life in Brazil.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374524351
• ISBN13: 9780374524357
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 282 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

uplifting

This book is fresh an uplifting...such a witty, charming author. I picked this book up in Parati,Brazil and am thankful for it!

Great

Unpretentious, yet magically beautiful. A young girl's diary of three years of her life in the end of the XIX century in a small diamond-extracting town in Brazil. Not meant for publication, the author gathered her writings to organize a booklet for her grand-daughters. When she was convinced to publish it, she could never dream it would turn out to be translated into many other languages. A must for literature lovers.

Charming, insightful, and humorous; life thru a child's eyes

Diary of a girl in rural Brazil in the late 1890's; now translated into English, the book has a charm of its own that transcends time and place. Diary entries are short, so the book can be read in bits and pieces. But should not be missed by anyone who loves life and the often acerbic observations of a child. Sadly, the original in Portuguese is no longer in print in either Brazil or Portugal, but the English version lives on. Don't miss it.