Notes for a cartography of literary translation history in Portugal

This paper is both a shortened version of a provisional account of a research project entitled “Literary Histories and Translations. Representations of the Other in Portuguese Culture” and an attempt at describing briefly the past and future of literary translation studies in Portugal. Therefore, it will provide an overview of the efforts to identify and study the work of literary translators over the centuries in Portugal, and offer an outline of what remains to be done.

[T]ranslators both ground a culture in their role as architects of vernacular languages and cultures and they creatively undermine and challenge these very cultures and their capacity as underground agents. (Michael Cronin, Translation and Globalisation, 2003)