PELTA member Emyr Humphreys reflects on translating the work of the great Brazilian crônica writer Júlia Lopes de Almeida
I made the happy realisation the other day that I’d been doing paid literary translation work practically since the end of my MA in Translation Studies at UCL in 2019. This is due in no small part to Dr. Ana Claudia Suriani da Silva, professor of Portuguese at UCL, my old dissertation supervisor and keen advocate of Brazilian literature. Ana Claudia had wanted some pieces translated so that students who didn’t speak the language could understand the content of what they were studying. Over the course of a few months, I translated poems and crônicas by Brazilian writers such as Machado de Assis, Oswald de Andrade, and of course, Júlia Lopes de Almeida. It was a perfect whistlestop tour through some of Brazil’s greats and a chance to cut my teeth as a fledgling literary translator. It came as a happy surprise when Ana Claudia, several months later, got in contact to ask if she could publish my translation of two crônicas by Julia Lopes de Almeida for an archival project on women writers of the Belle Époque.
I have to admit that, after a semester’s worth of lectures, I still can’t quite put my finger on what a crônica is. Not quite opinion piece, not quite news report, nor short story nor exposé (though all of the above and more), to call a crônica an article or column is like saying that to feel saudades means no more than missing someone or something. This sense of interdisciplinarity is at the core of what makes it so difficult to define: like Tropicália or even football, parts of it may originate in other cultures, but it is gestated and turned Brazilian in practice.
At first, these translations were strictly utilitarian in purpose: my main aim was to convey the content to laypeople as clearly as possible. However, Almeida’s sentences and vocabulary are so dynamic that it was impossible to avoid her baroque style. In order to retain clauses and punctuation, which to me are a crucial part of retaining the flavour of original texts, I had to let my sentences run on, only making significant interventions when the English became convoluted.
I remember having recently read Flora Thomson-DeVeaux’s translation of The Postumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Machado de Assis and Margaret Jull Costa’s translation of The Maias by Eça de Queiroz when I began translating the crônicas. These beautiful translations confirmed my belief that great literary translations make one imagine they’ve read the original even if they haven’t. It’s somewhere in this act of imagination that readers can tell if a literary translation is good, despite not even speaking language of the original, or not even speaking other languages; sometimes you can just sense it.
I approached this literary translation like every other: a blank Word document on the right side of my screen, a copy of the original on the left and typing it out as I go along. A rough first draft, a better second draft where most problems are sorted out, then a fine-tuned ‘final draft’ which I tinker with until the deadline, or until I can’t bear to work on it anymore. I read how Daniel Hahn speeds through his first drafts to just get anything written down in Catching Fire: A Translation Diary, and while I like to keep things moving on the first draft as well, I find that if I don’t have at least a base level of confidence the first time round, my mind gets ‘snagged’ all the way until the end of the translation process.
What made this case different was the gap between the previous draft I’d sent for Ana Claudia and the final draft I ended up submitting. Generally, literary translators working to a deadline cannot allow such a long time to go by between drafts, and so they have to translate ‘in the zone’, rarely getting enough time to consider their choices in hindsight. Reading back a translation from nearly two years ago (and expecting to cringe), I was pleasantly surprised by how much it held up; there were some choices that read a bit strangely, and others which turned out to be straight up mistranslations, but all in all it was a good read. The moral of the story: trust your judgement, translator!
The first crônica starts with Almeida’s thoughts on the opening of the Institut de beauté in Rio. She provides a charming history lesson on beauty through the ages, regularly providing humorous and astute observations on gender roles and the methods we used to keep well-groomed and looking healthy. However, the next crônica is where, in my opinion, her writing truly shines. In short, it’s a day in the life of Almeida: she blissfully reads the news in the sun until suddenly remembering an appointment with her tailor; she visits her friend and colleague Carmen Dolores at the hospital; she attends an art exhibition, then a lecture, before stopping at cafe for some ice cream; she heads home for an impromptu dinner with unforeseen guests before spending the rest of the evening at a classical concert. To me, this piece encapsulates the cotidiano: everyday life which has its own distinct Brazilian flavour.
It’s true that novels can capture snapshots of societies and the people within them: it’s one of the reasons why classic novels are so rewarding to read. However, I feel crônicas go one step further: scenes and interactions between characters are not only depicted but are lent a further subtext. From the buzzing of trams to the grit of the streets of Rio, you practically sweat along with Almeida she reads the news, and peek over her shoulder as she ambles around art exhibitions. Actors, musicians, artists and writers all make an appearance, giving a crystal-clear idea of the art Almeida was interacting with, the changes afoot in Brazilian society and the ideas which were being discussed.
I recommend any translator, novice or expert, to have a go at translating at least one crônica in their lifetime. Although one of my trickiest literary translations to date, it was also one of the most educational. The sentences are just that little bit more verbose, and you strain that little bit more to figure out the most suitable way of writing it in English. Also, seeing as all crônicas from this era are in the public domain, no permissions are needed should you decide to send your own translation around for publication – expedience which should tempt any potential translator.
Emyr Wallace Humphreys translates from Welsh and Portuguese to English, and from English to Welsh. A graduate of the MA programme in Translation Studies at University College London, he has had literary translations published in journals such as The White Review, Your Impossible Voice and Joyland Magazine, and has collaborated with the Wales Literature Exchange, HarperCollins and University College London as a literary translator. He won a bursary for the 2022 Bristol Translates Literary Translation Summer School and was the first Celtic-language translator to be awarded the 2022-23 Visible Communities Mentorship, part of the National Centre for Writing’s Emerging Translator Mentorship programme. He is a nominee for Deep Vellum’s Best Literary Translations Anthology 2024. He also works as a Welsh translator for Coleg Gwent and as a volunteer Welsh translator for local charities such as the Centre for Alternative Technology and Mid & North Powys Mind. He lives in Wales, dividing his time between rural Powys and Aberystwyth.
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