José Mauro de Vasconcelos: The interpreter and translations of Brazil

Abstract

This article addresses the life and work of the writer José Mauro de Vasconcelos. It has the triple objective of discussing comparatively the nationalization and internationalization logics of the youth literature production, the shifts and submissions throughout the author´s trajectory and the correlation between his translated work and the expectation of Brazilian, French and Spanish-American readers. Therefore, the contingencies and choices apparently disconnected in José Mauro´s profession, an intellectual who would never be enshrined by established authors, deal with the antagonistic centers which interact in the literary space and guide the book industry through the twentieth century: between passeurs and national borders guardians, between traditional literature made erudite and foreign literature made massive popular.