Poésie, traduction, représentativité : sur le rôle et la place des traducteurices à notre époque dans le champ littéraire brésilien

Abstract

In 2021, controversy erupted in the literary world over the choice of translation for the Dutch edition of « The Hill We Climb », a poem that became famous after Amanda Gorman recited it at Joe Biden's inauguration. In the Netherlands, publisher J.M. Meulenhoff chose Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, winner of the previous year's Man Booker International Prize, for the job. Following criticism from journalist Janice Deul, Rijneveld withdrew from the project, sparking a worldwide debate. This article uses that controversy to reflect on the relationship between literary production and translation, the violence of translation practice, and related issues of visibility and representativeness. To this end, the article draws on the reflections of Tiphaine Samoyault, Lawrence Venuti, Paulo Henriques Britto, and Walter Benjamin.

Keywords

• social class
• contemporary poetry
• literary translation
• representativeness
• invisibility