Reading Machado Through the Looking-Glass: Case Studies From the Translations of Memórias Póstumas

Abstract

For the past few decades, Anglophones have had access to three different translations of the Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas. Rather than muddying the waters, the divergences to be found between these versions of the novel may prove a fruitful entry into the text for scholars working in both languages. This paper provides a series of case studies from the translations of the novel, illustrating how a reading of the English versions allows us, the readers of Machado's readers, to map ambiguities and intertextual references.

Translating Machado De Assis: An Interview With Flora Thomson-Deveaux on the Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas and Other Discoveries

“…Nuance that may have come up during your translation or in the translations you have read? THOMSON-DEVEAUX: While I'm surely not the best judge of my own translation, I can say that my readings of previous, male-authored translations evidenced a number of interesting divergences in their renderings of the descriptions of the female characters -a few of them detailed in "Reading Machado through the Looking-Glass" [(THOMSON-DEVEAUX, 2018)]. What I drew from that was not necessarily that the male translators had missed something, but rather that Machado had constructed character descriptions that rest not on a hidden truth, but rather on veiled ignorance.…”