The correspondence between João Guimarães Rosa and his French translator, Jean-Jacques Villard

Abstract

The main objective of our work is to prepare for publication the correspondence, still unpublished, between João Guimarães Rosa and his French translator Jean-Jacques Villard. This project includes two great stages: preparing that correspondence for publication and elaborating a critique review meant as an Introduction to the book.The first covers a) transcription and orthographical updating of the letters, and the inclusion of marginal references; b) notes with reproductions of original stated documents, bibliographical and biographical references; c) translation of the letters written in French; d) appendices with supplementary documents and newspaper articles that handle Guimarães Rosa's reception in France in the sixties. To accomplish this first stage we count on Guimarães Rosa Fund documents preserved by the Institute of Brazilian Studies of São Paulo University, as well as other documents from personal archives of Jean-Jacques Villard's family, to be consulted.As for the critique review - second part of our work - we intend to focus on the relationship between the author and the translator, established through the mediation of the work to be translated. This involves the investigation of the poetical idea accepted by each one of them as well as the given literary horizon in the moment both the work and the translation were done. We will take Roland Barthes'escriptor concept and the rhythm theory of Henri Meschonic as a theoretical basis, without undervaluing Jauss's theory on reception as well as Antoine Berman's theory centered on the concept of foreigner. (AU)