From O Paiz do Carnaval to Il Paese del Carnevale And Le Pays du Carnaval: the paratexts of the italian and French Translations

Abstract

The year 2017 makes us remember the 90 years of the “Ata de Incineração” (Burning Act) which destroyed more than 1600 books of Jorge Amado, and among them 214 copies of O Paiz do Carnval, a novel whose first translation, which was made into the Italian language, according to the desire of Amado himself, appeared only in 1984, with a “note” by Luciana Stegagno Picchio. Presupposing that, before the publication of the first edition of the novel (1931), the Italian lexicographer Panzini had already rejected, for Italy, the old English nicknames carnival land and land of carnival; this article wants to highlight which interpretations were vehicled, both by the paratext of the Italian translation and by the one of

the French translation (1990), written by Alice Raillard. A translator who, however, took advantage of her famous interview Conversando com Jorge Amado, 1990 (Talking with Jorge Amado), which would open new paths to international criticism