Links between Brazil & Ireland www.visiteirlanda.com

Irish Literature in Brazil since 1888

Bibliographic details of works by or about Irish writers that have been translated into (Brazilian) Portuguese

(Rio de Janeiro) - All of Ireland’s four Nobel Prize winners in literature, viz., Samuel Beckett, Seamus Heaney, George Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats, are among the 38 or so Irish and Anglo-Irish authors whose works have been translated into (Brazilian) Portuguese since 1888, the date that Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift was first published in Brazil. The classic, with a foreword by Brazilian writer Rui Barbosa, was published thirty five years after the death of Joana Cristina Swift Macedo, a relative of Swift who lived in Rio (24/7/1810 – 12/6/1853).

In terms of “ranking”, works by Oscar Wilde would top the list for the most number of pages translated into Portuguese to-date (c. 13,000 pages), followed by James Joyce (c. 6,000), Jonathan Swift (c. 5,000), George Bernard Shaw (c. 4,500), Bram Stoker (c. 3,000), and Samuel Beckett (c. 2,200). Gulliver’s Travels, (9 translations and 34 adaptations for young readers), as well as The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (15 translations) have proven to be extremely popular with readers in Brazil down through the years.

Only fifteen translations of works by Irish authors seem to have been made between 1888 and 1944. Most of George Bernard Shaw’s works were translated over a ten-year period from 1945 to 1955 by Editora Melhoramentos in São Paulo (SP), and are now mostly out of print. Over one hundred editions of works by other Irish writers were published during the seven-year period from 1995 to 2001. Selected works by Samuel Beckett, Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge and Oscar Wilde have been staged in Brazil since the 1940s [1].

Ireland Literature Exchange (I L E) [2], the national literature agency in Ireland responsible for the promotion of literature in translation has provided funding to three Brazilian publishers to-date (Editora Record RJ, Companhia das Letras SP and Editora Estação Liberdade SP) for the translation of twelve books (c. 3,260 pages) written by eight Irish writers; John Banville, Eoin Colfer, Seamus Deane, Roddy Doyle, Neil Jordan, Colum McCann, Nuala O´Faolain and Colm Tóibín. Those funds were particularly well spent in the case of Artemis Fowl - o menino prodígio do crime by Eoin Colfer, which was translated and published by Editora Record in 2001. It was one of Brazil’s top ten selling books for 14 weeks up to the end of December of that year.

A number of Brazilian intellectuals are associated with certain Irish writers, such as Marcello Rollemberg of the University of São Paulo (USP) who has translated works by Oscar Wilde. Professor Bernardina da Silveira Pinheiro (RJ) brought out a new translation of James Joyce’s Ulysses for Bloomsday 2005. Professor Donald Schuler in Porto Alegre (RS) published an adaptation of Finnegans Wake in five bilingual volumes between 1999 and 2003, and poet and writer Haroldo de Campos R.I.P. (SP) translated parts of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in 1962. He, together with Professor Munira H. Mutran of USP and more recently poet Marcelo Tápia, coordinated the annual Bloomsday celebrations at Finnegans Pub (SP) for many years. Lenerson Polonini (SP), Rubens Rusche (SP) and Gerald Thomas (RJ) have all directed plays by Samuel Beckett. Eduardo Tolentino de Araújo (SP) has directed plays by George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

About 50 of the 300 titles listed below can be found at local bookshops and on the bondfaro.com web site [3]. Most of the remaining 250 books on the list are out of print, especially those by Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw. Such works can sometimes be found at local bookshops dealing in rare and second-hand books known as Sebos [4]. Just over 150 of the books listed can be read at Rio’s Biblioteca Nacional - National Library [5], which by law is entitled to receive at least one copy of every book published in Brazil [6]. There is naturally a certain lead-time before such works appear on the shelves there. Some of the many rare works held at that library include a translation of The Ballad of Reading Goal by Oscar Wilde dated 1899 - only 20 copies were published, an English edition of Gulliver’s Travels published in 1743 by George Faulkner, Dublin, as well as a 450-page book about Ireland dated 1658 and written in Latin. Books about Irish literature in general can researched using the Google Book Search web site [7], and Google Alerts can provide news about individual authors [8].

Notes on other literary links between Brazil and Ireland

· Irish literature courses at the University of São Paulo-USP began twenty five years ago with Prof. Munira H. Mutran (1980) - C.V.

· The library of the Department of Modern Letters (FFLCH) at USP contains the largest collection of works in Brazil by Irish authors in the English language [9]. Many of the books there were donated by the Irish Government and visiting dignitaries.

· Three works of art by Irish artist Louis Le Brocquy entitled Study towards an image of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and William Butler Yeats, respectively, were donated by Ireland to Rio’s Modern Art Museum (MAM) in 1980 following a fire there in 1978 [10].

· During a state luncheon hosted in Brasília on 18 July 2001 by the former President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in honour of An Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Mr. Bertie Ahern T.D., George Bernard Shaw was quoted by Mr. Cardoso in the context of the growing relations between the two countries: “Take care to get what you like, or you will end up liking what you get.”

· The 13^th. edition of Watermelon (Melancia) by Marian Keyes was published in 2004. She now appears to be the most widely read contemporary Irish writer in Brazil.

· Bloomsday centenary celebrations were held in eight Brazilian cities in 2004 [11].

· A Street (Rua) in the town of Paraty near Rio de Janeiro, which each year hosts FLIP - an international literary festival [12], was officially renamed Rua James Joyce in honour of the writer in 2004.

· Colm Tóibín addressed the festival that year to mark the Bloomsday centenary celebrations. He was also a guest of the XII International Book Fair of Rio in 2005: <www.bienaldolivro.com.br>.

· ABEI Journal - The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies is now in its seventh consecutive year of publication [13].

· Almost all the books on the list that follows form part of a private collection built up by the author during the past five years.

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Symbols

Works are listed by Author; Title of Book, Anthology or Collection in Portuguese; Original Title in English; Translator (Trans.); Place of Publication: (BA - Salvador, Bahia; DF - Brasília; RJ – Rio de Janeiro; RS - Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, and SP - São Paulo); Publisher; Date of publication; and Page numbers. Other symbols: ed. - edition; ch.2. - Chapter 2; vol. 3 - Volume 3; I-425,1,38 – denotes the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library, Rio) Index Number for the work; Funarte - Funarte RJ Library Index Number, and I L E - translation funded by Ireland Literature Exchange.

Click here to see all authors on one list,

or click on any individual author below.

| Eoin Colfer | Seamus Deane | Roddy Doyle | Brian Gallagher | Oliver Goldsmith | Seamus Heaney |

| Neil Jordan | James Joyce | Marian Keyes | Patrick McCabe | Colum McCann | Frank McCourt |

| Brian Moore | Conor Cruise O’Brien | Edna O’Brien | Fitz-James O´Brien | Flann O’Brien | Sean O’Casey

| John O´Donohue | Nuala O´Faolain | Séan O´Faolain | Liam O’Flaherty | George Bernard Shaw |

| James Stephens | Laurence Sterne | Bram Stoker | Jonathan Swift | John Millington Synge |

| Colm Tóibín | Oscar Wilde | Niall Williams | William Butler Yeats |

Books | About other writers | About Irish Literature | References to Irish theatre | Other Publications |

| Books researched in Brazil since 1648 | Rare books in Brazilian libraries |

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[1] For details see: http://www.gogobrazil.com/drama.html > “Irish Drama in Brazil since 1940.”

[2] I L E: http://www.irelandliterature.com/

[3] bondfaro: http://www.bondfaro.com.br/livros.html

[4] See Guia dos Sebos (Guide to Sebos) by Antonio Carlos Secchin, Editora Nova Fronteira, RJ.

[5] See: http://www.bn.br/ under “Pesquisa no Acervo.”

[6] Lei do Deposito Legal. Lei 10.994 of 14.12.2004.

[7] http://books.google.com

[8] http://www.google.com/alerts

[9] FFLCH, Biblioteca Central; Av. Prof. Lineu Prestes - Trav. 12,350; 05508-900 Cid. Universitária,

São Paulo, SP. E: bibfflch@edu.usp.br

[10] See: http://www.gogobrazil.com/louislebrocquy.html

[11] http://www.gogobrazil.com/bloomsday2004.html

[12] FLIP: http://www.flip.org.br

[13] ABEI contents: http://www.gogobrazil.com/abeijournal.html

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