I met Giovanni Pontiero only once, at a congress in Birmingham in 1993. Like many others, I was very impressed with his kindness and generosity. And later he contributed with his translations of Cecilia Meirelles to the Brazilian section of Modern Poetry in Translation No. 6, which I organized. In the context of Portuguese and Brazilian literature in the English speaking world, his importance cannot be underestimated as his translations of the novels of José Saramago and Clarice Lispector have made them into recognized literary figures in the Anglo-American world. His translations are generally recognized as superbly crafted and careful, able to capture the many nuances of such difficult writers as Saramago and Lispector.