Marcia Amaral Peixoto MARTINS (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Anthologizing Brazilian discourse on translation


The purpose of this paper is to discuss the process of collecting and editing the first anthology of texts featuring early translation theories by writers, critics, and translators who either were Brazilian by birth or had settled in Brazil. Translation practice began in Brazil in the sixteenth century, during the colonial period, with the arrival of Portuguese explorers who aimed to educate and convert to Catholicism the peoples of the newfound land. Among the first texts to be translated in the then Terra de Santa Cruz was the Catecismo Brasílico, rendered from Portuguese into the native language Tupi by the Jesuit priest José de Anchieta, who made some brief considerations about his translation strategies in a few letters to his fellow Jesuits in Europe. Anchieta’s writings are thus the initial landmark of the research for the proposed anthology. Once edited according to consistent criteria, a collection of theoretical or semi-theoretical writings on translation – that can be found in letters, prefaces/postfaces, critical reviews, interviews, short essays and similar texts – may provide an overview of discourse on translation in Brazil throughout the centuries, before the more systematic theorizing that started with Paulo Rónai in the 1950s. It is to be hoped that such an anthology will contribute to the historiography of translation in Brazil as well as make this history more visible in global Translation Studies. Studies of the history of translation theory, initially focused on hegemonic European languages and cultures, are now turning to Eastern cultures; as South America also has an exciting past as far as translation is concerned, even if not as far reaching, it is about time that this story be told.