TY - JOUR
T1 - The necessities and dangers of translation
T2 - Brazilian literature on a global stage
AU - Brune, Krista
N1 - Funding Information:
The centrality of translation to the global recognition of Brazilian literature is further evidenced by the fact that the works that initially appeared in Granta em português, released at the International Literary Festival in Paraty in July 2012, were quickly translated for the Autumn 2012 edition of the English-language Granta. The National Library Foundation provided partial financial support for the English publication of Granta. The versions in the two languages feature the same writers, although with different stories in some cases. Saavedra, Geisler, Xerxenesky and Sarmatz opted to publish translations of previously released works, and Lísias swapped the Portuguese excerpt of an in-progress novel for a new short story, ‘Evo Morales’. These authors revealed an awareness of the workings of a global literary market by choosing to include in the English version of Granta pieces more indicative of their style, better known, or more polished. Their contributions to Granta in English would likely introduce Anglo-American readers and a broader international public to their writing. Considerations of a global literary market also seem to inform the initial selection process, even though the jury consisted of prominent names of Brazilian letters: Beatriz Bracher, Cristovão Tezza, Samuel Titan, Manuel da Costa Pinto, Italo Moriconi and Marcelo Ferroni, with Benjamin Moser as the international representative.44 Their list of the ‘best young writers’ reflects the limitations of the contest, which received 247 submissions of unpublished works by writers born in 1972 or later, and the biases of the jury as members of the literary and academic elite of south-eastern Brazil or, in the case of Moser, a writer from the United States currently positioned as a gatekeeper of Brazilian literature in English translation. The selections resonate with preferences of the Anglo-American literary market for global voices and realistic fiction.
Funding Information:
Rather than examine the possibilities of untranslatability, the Brazilian government during the Lula and Dilma terms affirmed its belief in the potential of literature to impact global images of Brazil. The Ministry of Culture and the National Library funded grants for foreign publishers to translate and publish works of Brazilian authors, stipends for foreign translators to live in Brazil, and support for Brazilian authors to travel abroad to promote their translated works. Through this financial support, the state attempted to raise the global profile of Brazilian literature, an effort that reached its peak in October 2013 with Brazil as the honoured country at the Frankfurt International Book Fair. The initiative was plagued with problems of late payments and more limited funds than needed to complete publications. In spite of these challenges, the programme funded 390 grants for the translation of 181 authors between 2011 and 2013, according to Fábio Lima of the National Library.33 In a short period, the government contributed to the visibility of Brazilian literature in translation.
Publisher Copyright:
© British Comparative Literature Association.
PY - 2018/2/1
Y1 - 2018/2/1
N2 - This article examines how translation helped to establish Brazil as a tropical site of desire for foreign audiences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how translations of contemporary literature often struggle to break free from this established dynamic. By studying the discursive construction of a modern Brazil in the nineteenth century and the practices of translation in contemporary Brazilian literature, I contend that the insertion of Brazil into realms of world literature often depends upon acts of representation and translation that frame the nation and its peoples as exotic. Analysing the Brazilian government's recent translation grants and contemporary English-language anthologies of Brazilian literature reveals a tendency to translate either an exotic Brazil marked by violence and poverty or a global Brazil inhabited by cosmopolitan characters. The piece concludes by reflecting on how a politics of untranslatability could transform the translation and global circulation of Brazilian literature.
AB - This article examines how translation helped to establish Brazil as a tropical site of desire for foreign audiences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and how translations of contemporary literature often struggle to break free from this established dynamic. By studying the discursive construction of a modern Brazil in the nineteenth century and the practices of translation in contemporary Brazilian literature, I contend that the insertion of Brazil into realms of world literature often depends upon acts of representation and translation that frame the nation and its peoples as exotic. Analysing the Brazilian government's recent translation grants and contemporary English-language anthologies of Brazilian literature reveals a tendency to translate either an exotic Brazil marked by violence and poverty or a global Brazil inhabited by cosmopolitan characters. The piece concludes by reflecting on how a politics of untranslatability could transform the translation and global circulation of Brazilian literature.
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U2 - 10.3366/ccs.2018.0257
DO - 10.3366/ccs.2018.0257
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85049771457
SN - 1744-1854
VL - 15
SP - 5
EP - 24
JO - Comparative Critical Studies
JF - Comparative Critical Studies
IS - 1
ER -
