LITERARY SPEECH AND ETHNIC-RACE RELATIONS: SINGULARITIES IN THE BELOVED TRANSLATION, FROM TONI MORRISON

Abstract

This article aims to discuss ethnic-racial relations in literary translation field. For such purpose, we will discuss the novel Beloved (1987), from African-American writer Toni Morrison and its translation performed by José Rubens Siqueira and published by Companhia das Letras editor under the title of Amada (2007). First, we will make an introduction about author, including information about her literary career, her production, received awards and translations of her works into several languages. In this way, we intend to show the importance of her writing for the American literary context, especially with regard to cultural African-American universe. Then, we present the Beloved plot, whose characters experienced the memories and traumas of slavery system in the United States. We also seek contextualize the novel in the context of literary production of Morrison. Finally, based on the assumption that the translation is responsible for creating images of an author, of a work, a culture (Lefevere, 1990), we will develop a Beloved analysis through its paratexts (Genette, 2009) and some aspects of its textual structure. With this, we aim to verify how the writer and the said book are represented in Brazil by means of translation, focusing on the construction of ethnic and racial issues.