Born in Montreal, Neil Besner grew up in Rio de Janeiro, has taught and travelled widely in Brazil, and is fluent in Portuguese. He taught Canadian literature at the University of Winnipeg for thirty years. He has written and edited books on Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro and Carol Shields, as well as numerous articles. His award-winning translation into English of a Brazilian biography of Elizabeth Bishop was a major source for the 2013 feature film Reaching for the Moon. An avid fisherman and an amateur musician, he spends 4 months each summer on Lake of the Woods in Northwestern Ontario.