Concepts and Contests in the Translation of Indigenous Poetics in Brazil (original) (raw)
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This study examines the creative and theoretical engagement of contemporary Brazilian translators with the specificities of the translation of lowland South American Indigenous verbal arts into Portuguese. Amerindian verbal arts, as a field of scholarly interest, have been mobilizing the commitment and expertise of more and more linguists, ethnologists, and translation and literature researchers in the country. As the applicability of concepts such as "literature", "poetry" and "verbal arts" to Amerindian poetics is questioned by many of them, this article offers a critical review of recurring tensions in scholarly discourse. Résumé : Cette étude présente l'engagement créatif et théorique des traducteurs brésiliens contemporains avec plus particulièrement la traduction de l'art verbal des autochtones des basses terres d'Amérique du Sud vers le portugais. L'art verbal amérindien, en tant que domaine de recherche universitaire, mobilise de...
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The article both presents how, from the end of the 1980s onwards, native peoples have begun to occupy certain spaces of textual production and circulation that they had not previously occupied in the Brazilian cultural scene (for social, linguistic, and cultural reasons, but also political and juridical) and discusses how this process has provoked a vigorous movement of dilation of traditional textual and discursive borders in Western culture. Texts deriving from indigenous peoples in the sphere of academic discourse are, in general, bilingual, and are structured in ways that combine aspects of intellectual production with those of artistic creation. Moreover, they are also structured around a rather complex conception of the notion of authorship (considering that they are written by an author but represent the voice of their people). As examples, the article analyzes the case of Os cantos tradicionais Ye'kwana [Traditional Ye'kwana Chants], by the indigenous teacher and researcher Fernando Ye'kwana Gimenes, winner of the 2020/2021 edition of the Dirce Cortes Riedel Masters Dissertation Award by the Brazilian Association of Comparative Literature, as a typical example of the cultural phenomenon discussed. The traditional Ye'kwana chants present significant transgressions in relation to the traditional notions of narrative logic and the dominant forms of narration in the fields of literature and history. The awarding of this academic prize to an indigenous inhabitant of the forest, on the border between Brazil and Venezuela, by the largest association of comparative literature in Latin America, in addition to being an important act in political terms, demonstrates how urgent it is to rethink processes of global literary dissemination beyond the restricted frameworks configured by the logic of hegemonic cultures, which are based on closed divisions and hierarchies. With this, we intend to contribute to the process of including Amerindian texts in the repertoire of Comparative Literature and World Literature.
RAÍZES: BRAZILIAN WOMEN POETS IN TRANSLATION
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Esta coletânea foi realizada por muitas mãos e inspirada por muitas pessoas, e a elas gostaríamos de agradecer o trabalho que permitiu a existência deste livro. Não poderíamos iniciar esta lista de agradecimentos sem referendar o Mulherio das Letras-Brasil e a importância da presença, no campo literário, da escritora Maria Valéria Rezende que, ao perguntar "Onde estão as mulheres?", plantou a semente da qual germinou o primeiro Mulherio, hoje um rizoma literário a espalhar-se por diversos países. Gostaríamos de agradecer também à escritora Cristiane Sobral, madrinha do Mulherio das Letras-Estados Unidos, que nos inspirou a inspirar outras mulheres a repetirem alto e sem constrangimento a frase "sou escritora!", ocupando lugares antes restritos. Agradecemos à escritora marginal e articuladora cultural Karine Bassi que acreditou neste livro e nos orientou em tantas etapas. É com orgulho que hoje fazemos parte do catálogo da Venas Abiertas, uma editora criada por ela e que publica uma literatura potente e transformadora. Expressamos nossa gratidão, ainda, à artista plástica e escritora Deborah Dornellas que abrilhantou o projeto com suas belas ilustrações. Agradecemos às tradutoras e aos tradutores que, de forma voluntária e durante um ano pandêmico-que nos obrigou a viver sob tantas pressões e desafios imagináveis talvez apenas na ficção-, traduziram ao inglês os poemas desta coletânea:
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How does one translate an avant-garde classic? How might a translation mediate between experimentalism and canonicity as a work travels away from its culture of origin? This article studies Héctor Olea's Spanish translation of Mário de Andrade's Macunaíma (1928) as one response to these questions from a Latin American translation zone. First translated for the Barcelona publishing house Seix Barral (1977), his work soon traveled back across the Atlantic to be re-edited into a critical edition for Biblioteca Ayacucho (1979). This article examines letters from the publisher's archive to demonstrate that debates over the novel as avant-garde art, literary ethnography, or Brazilian national allegory influenced their views on translation. By including two incompatible translation approaches—transcreation and thick translation—the volume reveals an unresolved paradoxical treatment of cultural hybridity at the heart of the text. Keywords Macunaíma – Mário de Andrade – Héctor Olea – untranslatables – transcreation – Biblioteca Ayacucho How should an avant-garde classic be translated? How might a translation mediate between experimentalism and canonicity? Macunaíma: o herói sem nenhum caráter (Macunaíma: the hero without any character) (1928) by Mário de Andrade (1893–1945) is a central text of the avant-garde movement known as Brazilian modernismo. Borrowing stories and narrative techniques from indigenous cultures and European avant-gardes, this novel provokes debate about the placement of indigenous and European cultural forms in Brazilian cul
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