Some strange country of nightmares: the translation of “The ascent of Mount Roraima” (1885), by Everard im Thurn
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2024.e104170Keywords:
Mount Roraima, british colonialism in the Amazon, translationAbstract
This paper aims to contextualize the text "The ascent of Mount Roraima" (1885) by Everard Ferdinand im Thurn (1852-1932) as a pivotal exploratory narrative of its time due to its influential role as a report of a peak moment in the British imperialist project in the Amazon. Additionally, it provides brief commentary on its accompanying translation, which is the first published in Brazilian Portuguese. The study focuses on the impact of the author's narrative — an English explorer, botanist, and administrator — on the scientific and literary world of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By describing the botanical richness surrounding the mountain and the alienation caused by its topography, which suggested an almost absolute isolation of its summit, it influenced Eurocentric science and the literary output of authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), who wrote The Lost World ([1912] 2018).
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