Paratranslation: an editorial practice and a case study of Machado de Assis published in Spanish

Abstract

We proposed here a reading of paratexts (Genette, 2009) in two translations of Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas into Spanish, in order to analyse how Machado de Assis’ image is constructed. As a critical proposition of working with the translated text, paratranslation allows us to understand not only the wider aspects regarding the text itself, but also the wider aspects of translation process within the editorial practices (Yuste Frías, 2011, 2015). We have noticed an emphasis on biographical aspects of Machado de Assis, mainly about his childhood as a poor black boy in 1800’s Brazil and his adulthood as a literary genius as epileptic person. We also contrast this construction of Machado as an author the more well-known and repeated image with another one presented by Massa (2009a).