Gabriel Borowski

In this article, I try to lay out clearly and discuss selected issues encountered during the translation (with Eda Nagayama) of Bogdan Bartinkowski’s (born 1932) collection of stories Dzieciństwo w pasiakach (1969) into Brazilian Portuguese. My text combines a scholarly dimension with one of self-commentary in order to offer  some general reflection on the subject of the ethics of translating testimony. It consists of three parts. In the first, I provide a concise overview of the state of research on the connections between translation and studies on cultural memory. Next, I present a series of observations relating to the emotional dimension of the process  of translating Holocaust testimonies. In the final section, I compare solutions adopted in translations of Bartnikowski’s memoir into German, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, and Portuguese. In a summing up, I try to define the memory-(re)productive role of translation: reproductive, in that the translation of testimony  demands a respect for the truth of the signs present in the original and their rendering in the target culture; and productive (creative) inasmuch as it demands of the author of the translation a series of procedures with the aim of inscribing a universal theme within the specific field of cultural memory.

It Gives You Shivers: Translating Polish Holocaust Testimony into Brazilian Portuguese

In this article, I try to lay out clearly and discuss selected issues encountered during the translation (with Eda Nagayama) of Bogdan Bartinkowski’s collection of stories Dzieciństwo w pasiakach (1969) into Brazilian Portuguese. My text combines a scholarly dimension with one of self-commentary in order to offer some general reflection on the subject of the ethics of translating testimony. It consists of three parts. In the first, I provide a concise overview of the state of research on the connections between translation and studies on cultural memory. Next, I present a series of observations relating to the emotional dimension of the process of translating Holocaust testimonies. In the final section, I compare solutions adopted in translations of Bartnikowski’s memoir into German, English, Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, and Portuguese. In the conclusions, I try to define the memory-(re)productive role of translation: reproductive, in that the translation of testimony demands a respect for the truth of the signs present in the original and their rendering in the target culture; and productive (creative) inasmuch as it demands of the author of the translation a series of procedures with the aim of inscribing a universal theme within the specific field of cultural memory.

*Niniejszy tekst powstałdzięki wsparciu programu SPECTRESS (Social Performance, Cultural Trauma and the Reestablishing of Solid Sovereignties), w ramach którego w sierpniu i wrześniu 2017 przebywałem na Uniwersytecie São Paulo.

O presente artigo visa a discutir a importância de duas imagens do Antigo Testamento, relacionadas diretamente com a questão da linguagem, na reflexão tradutória de Haroldo de Campos. Na primeira parte do estudo, que diz respeito à expulsão dos primeiros homens do Jardim do Éden, sublinha-se o valor da reflexão messiânica de Walter Benjamin na formação da teoria de transcriação. Na segunda parte, que constitui uma breve análise do segundo quadro (Babel & Desbabel) do tríptico Éden (2004), ilustra-se a realização prática da proposta teórica haroldiana, apontando sobretudo para o problema da tradução do nome de Deus.
 

Reconsidering the 25 April: Estive em Lisboa e lembrei de você by Luiz Ruffato as ethnography of Lisbon’s underground

The aim of this analysis of the novel Estive em Lisboa e lembrei de você (2009) by the Brazilian author Luiz Ruffato is to approach the migrant subject as an observer of the precarious reality of the immigrants in the Portuguese capital. The underworld they form is seen as one of the most ambiguous consequences of four decades of democracy in Portugal.

The present article is an analysis of the configuration of the narrative focus and its implications for the construction of three novels from the “second phase” of Machado de Assis’ ouvre: Casa Velha (1885), Dom Casmurro (1899) and Memorial de Aires (1908). We seek to shed new light on the problem faced by the Brazilian thinker at the end of 19th century, when his desire to understand the collective past was frustrated by the lack of a perspective capable of giving a full image of a heterogenous and strongly verticalized society. In order to exemplify this relationship, we propose to reflect on the role of portait as an intratextual representation of the narrative focus

The results of research on the use of granulated fly ashes with phosphogypsum in the production of cement and their impact on the hardening of cement mortar are presented in this paper. The materials used for the production of granules were fly ash from power plants and a twenty-percent proportion of phosphogypsum waste from the production of phosphoric acid. The granules were tested in terms of their use for the production of cement. It has been shown that, in accordance with the Polish Standard PN-EN 197-1: 2012, cement with 20% of shredded granules meets the requirements of strength for class 32.5. Cement mortar was made and the properties were compared with typical mortar prepared from ash with gypsum. It was found that the tested cement mortar have a longer setting time. However, both types of mortar had similar compressive strengths and flexural strengths after hardening for twenty-eight days.

Transcreation: Haroldo de Campos’s Theory of Translation

This article presents Haroldo de Campos (1929–2003), an eminent Brazilian translator, theorist, literary scholar, co-founder of the concrete poetry movement, who championed radically new perceptions of the source text and the translator. His transcreations into Brazilian Portuguese range from Genesis and Ecclesiastes through Japanese haiku to Pindar, Homer, Dante, Goethe, Mallarmé, Mayakovski, Joyce or Pound. They do not constitute free translation or paraphrase; rather, they aim to appropriate the original and re-create its isomorphic equivalent in the target culture. An overview of the concept of cultural cannibalism as well as Campos’s contribution to concrete poetry sets the context for the presentation of Haroldo de Campos’s translation theories as well as some of his solutions to literary translation problems.

Six Months of Schulz: On the First Phase of the Brazilian Reception of His Collected Prose

This article provides a detailed analysis of the earliest reception of the fi rst Brazilian edition of Bruno Schulz’s collected prose (Ficção completa, trans. by Henryk Siewierski, São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2012). By analysing the circumstances of its publication and its fi rst critical repercussions, this study aims to highlight some of the important properties of a translated author’s image-building process in the host culture, with a particular regard to the already existing contexts as receptive frameworks. It also underlines the translator’s role as an expert and a guide, seen as an active agent in the reception process.