The Translated Book as Body-Book

Abstract

The text is like a body, shaped by the cultural environment of which it is an expression, and bears in itself the imprint of its creator. The translation is a journey between different worlds, experiences of meaning and interpretations. At the moment in which it lives such an experience, a kind of migration towards another universe of meaning, the body-book is forced to live a process of inclusion, in a new world. This new world may not accept it for what it is and mark it, in an attempt to make it more similar to what is known and, therefore, reassuring. Interventions on the body-book are at times comparable to certain ritual signs, which mark a passage, tattoos that can add something interesting. Other times they are real scars, which deeply wound it. We could speak of manipulation of the body-book, of which the various paratexts are indeed a part, of rereading and rewriting which can sometimes lead to satisfactory, other disheartening results. The 1930s novels by Jorge Amado, Graciliano Ramos, and José Lins do Rego went through this rite of passage when they were translated into Italian. Some signs are more hidden and harder to identify: a more intimate relationship between the observer and the body that bears them may be necessary; others, on the other hand, can be grasped at first glance.