In 1951, after a bout of gastitis sidelined her from a South-American cruise, Bishop remained behind in Brazil, where she established a satisfying relationship with Lota de Macedo Soares. She earned critical acclaim and a Pulitzer Prize for poetry for a collection set in Nova Scotia, A Cold Spring (1955). In her Brazilian period, she translated Alice Brant's The Diary of "Helena Morley" (1957) and composed Brazil (1962), an overedited volume stressing the struggle of South America under entrenched patriarchy. She followed with a National Book Award-winner, Questions of Travel (1965).
After the death of her mate in 1967, Bishop returned to the United States and wrote a volume of children's verse, The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon (1968). In 1969, she began a satisfying teaching career as Harvard's poet-in-residence. During this period, she issued Complete Poems (1969), edited An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Brazilian Poetry (1972), and published Geography III (1976), which earned her an election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National Book Critics' Circle award. Bishop died of a cerebral aneurysm in Boston on October 6, 1979. Posthumous works include The Complete Poems (1983) and The Collected Prose (1984).
