Translation, Resistance, Activism

Growing Agency: The Labors of Political Translation

211 “ What if Bernardo is born in prison? And what if he is snatched from me at childbirth like all those desaparecidos in Argentina? The world knows about all those innocent babies who were taken away from their mothers. Who will feed him? Who will give him affection? Who will bring him up? Who will see to his future? What will his future be like?” These thoughts haunted me as the due date of the birth of my first child and the deadline to submit a political translation were both fast approaching. It all started when I was in the fifth month of my pregnancy in early October 1980. A representative of Vozes, which is a most reliable, wellestablished , and professional publishing house in Brazil, comparable to Routledge in the English-speaking world, based in Petrópolis, near Rio de Janeiro, flew to Belo Horizonte, the capital of the central state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, where I lived. He had a proposal for me: to translate from English into Portuguese a recently accepted doctoral dissertation written by René Dreifuss for the program in Political Science of the University of Glasgow. The thesis was on the history of Brazil.1 I need to clarify that my role was to be more than just translating. I would only translate part of the manuscript, but what was further expected of me was organizing a team of translators, typists, and everything I would need to produce a quality translation of a 1,200-page text in limited time. The task also involved stylistic adjustments to make the text flow better for non-academic readers. The moment seemed to be opportune for ELSE R. P. VIEIRA Growing Agency: The Labors of Political Translation 212 Else R. P. Vieira the publishers to bring Brazilian history to a broader spectrum of the public . Or perhaps it was the other way round: the country was ready to learn more. Adjustments included, for example, toning down the dense thesis style to make it more reader friendly. We would have less than five months to produce camera-ready hard copy for the publishing house. They needed the pages in early February so that the book could be printed by 31 March 1981, the seventeenth anniversary of the coup d’état that established the dictatorship in Brazil. The publishers were going to speed up the printing process, but we as translators would have to speed up the translation process as well. But speeding up meant in no way lessening the quality of the translation . It would have to meet the standards of the publisher, myself, and the author as well. The professionalism of the publishing house is important to stress. They were aware that the pressures were great and told me that I should propose what I would need to accomplish the task. No limits were set on the resources, including the number of co-translators and extra costs for full-time typists. This is of course very unusual. At the same time the publishing house was adamant and unyielding about the time limits. They would not negotiate about the deadline and they made it clear that no extensions would be given for submission of the camera-ready hard copies. There were challenges in the proposal and it’s good to work when you have a sense that there are challenges ahead of you. The offer was irrefutable. Bonding the Publishing House, the Author, and the Translator Vozes is one of the five largest publishing houses in Brazil. Its socialpolitical agenda dates back to its beginning in the nineteenth century, when the two Franciscan monks who founded the firm used to print books for the free school São José. The books printed in the early days had a fundamental role in the resistance to the growth and spread of positivism in the nineteenth century. Together with the dissemination of religious culture , Vozes has stood for fostering Catholic intellectual movements. This trend in some ways anticipates the groundbreaking historical leap that the Catholic Church made in Latin America in the 1960s, which came to be known as Liberation Theology. In the 1970s during the institutionalized Growing Agency: The Labors of Political Translation 213 political repression, Vozes was brave enough to publish books such as Tortura nunca mais (Torture Never More) and A voz dos vencidos (The Voice of the Defeated), as well as books with themes leading to reflection...