German literature in Brazil – writing and translating between two worlds. The works of Herbert Caro and Ernst Feder as writing-between-worlds

Abstract

German literature, like any other national literature, is usually constrained by territorial restrictions, the frontiers of either Germany or German-speaking countries. However, this very static point of view excludes spatial mobility and vectorial dynamism, which are the very basis of literature. Emigration to other countries, writing in different languages, or reading novels either in foreign languages or in translation have been starting points for literary production for centuries. These initial considerations are the basis for a new paradigm of literary historiography in a view of literature beyond national limits which includes spatial dynamism, cross-border movements and a concept of transatlantic literature beyond the notions of centre and periphery. In the case of Brazil this opens a whole field of investigation which is mainly unknown to traditional histories of German literature: literature that has been produced in Brazil by Germanspeaking emigrants of the nineteenth and twentieth century. My contribution will take into consideration two German writers in exile, Herbert Caro and Ernst Feder, and will employ a mode of distant reading to illustrate how these examples challenge concepts of traditional philology.