FrançaisConference : The contradictions of the globalisation of the publishing industry
The Translation of French Literature in Brazil in the Context of Editorial Globalization
Author/s : Marta Pragana Dantas
This lecture concerns itself with the presentation of the first results of an ongoing research on the translation of French literature in Brazil between 1984 and 2002. Considering a country where 75% of its population between 15 and 64 years old are formed of either illiterates or functional illiterates (68%), and where the average number of books published per inhabitant and per year is lower than 2, we then ask: is there a reader (and thus a book market) for those literary books translated from French? Are there editors for these books? In view of the dominant position of both the English language and the American cultural industry in the international market, as well as the worldwide decline of the influence of both the French language and culture, we can figure out the difficulties surmounting this editorial segment. Nevertheless, Brazil is the eighth in the world in the production of books and the country’s editorial industry is the most important in Latin America.
Historically, the translation market in Brazil has taken up different places in the editorial market, alternating between the profitable periods (the 1940s, for example, known as “the golden years of translation in Brazil”, just to quote Paulo Rónai’s own words), and other critical ones (such as the 1950s, in which tax obstacles did away with the initiatives on the part of the editors to translate foreign pieces and pay for respective author’s rights.
However, along the last twenty years, the Brazilian editorial market has increased impressively, despite a persistent big gap between the different regions, to a certain extent because of the difficulties of distribution. This growth may be measured by increasing number of publications and by the multiplication of big editorial corporations and bookshops, thus making it topical such issues as the tension between cultural diversity and focus on the publication of acknowledged authors; between the small and the standard editors, and the globalized corporations; between the local and the global ones.
This lecture will therefore develop around the following questions: 1) what are the effects tied up to the unification of the market over the translation of books of literature from French into Brazilian Portuguese?; 2) how has the flow of such translations evolved during these last years?; 3) what is the editorial strategy of those who work with the translation of the French literature?; 4) to what extent do the editors focus themselves on reediting, to the disadvantage of the new authors?
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