Maria Lin MONIZ (CECC – Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal)

Between translation and authorship: the invention of the Other. For the history of pseudotranslations in Portugal


Based on the paradigmatic case of the collections of adventure and mystery pseudotranslated by Mário Domingues and published in Portugal between 1930 and 1960, I intend to study the role played by such collections in the shaping / invention of the Other, in a dictatorial context rather closed to the “foreign”. Let me name, as examples, three collections published in the 1940s and 1950s: 1) “A volta ao mundo por dois aventureiros” [Travels around the world by two adventurers]; 2) “As autênticas aventuras de Anton Ogareff, o maior aventureiro eslavo” [The true adventures of Anton Ogareff, the greatest Slavonic adventurer] and 3) “Aventuras extraordinárias de Billy Keller, o rei do Far-West” [The extraordinary adventures of Billy Keller, the King of the Far-West].
Besides a large number of volumes, either translated or original, signed with his own name, Mário Domingues created several collections of adventure and mystery, presented as works by foreign authors (Henry Dalton, Philip Gray, Max Felton, Joe Waterman and many others) but which were, in fact, written by himself. In some cases, Mário Domingues has even created ficticious translators of his ficticious authors.
I will, therefore, try to unveil the motivations hidden in this game of masks, considering that pseudotranslations create, simultaneously, an authorial persona (pseudonym) and the (ficticious) memory of a text pre-existing in another language. I also wish to find out how such texts have met Toury’s concept of “culture planning”, considering that they might have filled in a gap, felt as “foreign”, in this kind of literature.