Review Hitopadesa, translation by D. Pedro II. Genetic editing organized by Sergio Romanelli, Christiane Stallaert and Adriano Mafra

Abstract

Organized as a genetic edition, this book portrays and appraises a creative process, and to our great surprise it is the genesis is of the translation, by Emperor D. Pedro II, of Hitopadeśa, a collection of fables and folk tales of Hindu origin. The authors define themselves as organizers, but they do their job as editors in a broader dimension, by bringing details about a not so commonplace view of the emperor’s person, that of a literate man, passionate about translations, which he intensely and constantly performed, in a number of languages. The result of a research of over ten years, which required meticulous transcriptions and making decisions about format and visualization, this study unfolds into dimensions that the organizers explain, in an engaging and fascinating way

Keywords

• hitopadeśa
• tales
• fables