The circulation of Brazilian literature in the 21st century: translation and publishing market / A circulação da literatura brasileira no século XXI: tradução e mercado editorial

The objective of the article is to discuss the results of research carried out jointly with students of the Degree of Letters and the Bachelor's Degree in Translation, on the translations of Brazilian literature in the contexts of Germany, Spain, England, United States and France. A transversal look on the circulation of Brazilian works in these different spaces showed the existence of some regularities with respect to the authors and the most translated works, as well as publishers and literary agencies, revealing how certain principles of economic, political and cultural nature act on the flow of translations in the international literary space. The focus of attention was on the role of publishers as intermediaries who act in a decisive way in the process of selection, presentation and introduction of the translated work in the reception context. From the theoretical point of view, the study is inscribed within the perspective of the Sociology of translation developed notably by Gisèle Sapiro, Johan Heilbron and Pascale Casanova, in the wake of the thought of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.


Introduction
In a 1968 text entitled "Esquema Machado de Assis", Brazilian literary critic Antonio Candido attributed the lack of international recognition of two of the greatest exponents of Brazilian and Portuguese literature to the language in which their works were written and to the inexpressiveness, in international geopolitics, of the countries where they are spoken. The article referred in the following terms -and not without certain exaggeration, as will be seen -to the lack of international prestige of the Portuguese language: Of the languages of the West, ours is the least known, and if the countries in which it is spoken represent little today, in 1900 they represented much less in the political game. That is why two novelists who wrote in it and who are the same as the greatest writers at that time became marginal: Eça de Queirós, well adjusted to the spirit of Naturalism; Machado de Assis, enigmatic and bifronte, looking to the past and to the future, hiding a strange and original world under the apparent neutrality of his stories that everyone could read. (CANDIDO, 1968, p. 17) Although it is excessive to say that the Portuguese language would be "the least known" in the West, it must be agreed that its little world projection remains an unaltered fact from the 1960s onwards. Indeed, Portuguese occupies a peripheral place in the world cartography of languages 2 . And regarding Brazil's insertion into the international geopolitical arena, if the country lived, between 2002 and 2014, "the dream of being the 'world colossus'" in the words of the philosopher, linguist and activist Noam Chomsky , quoted by Maretti y Souza, 2018)when, "in the years of Lula and Dilma, it became the most respected country in the world and organized the South American bloc as never before" -, this period today is an exception in the history of that nation 3 .
Candido refers to the linguistic and geopolitical dimensions of a nation to explain the greater or lesser recognition of its literature on the international stage. This argument has similarities with the thinking of French literary critic Pascale Casanova and her concept of linguistic-literary capital, inspired on Pierre Bourdieu's sociology. For Casanova, linguistic-literary capital should be understood as "[…] the prestige, the strictly literary beliefs attached to a language, the literary value attributed to it and which are due to its age, the prestige of its poetry, the refinement of the literary forms developed in this language, traditions, the literary 'effects' linked in particular to translations and their number etc." (2002, p. 8) 4 . The symbolic capital associated to languages and literatures is, therefore, quite unequal and explains, in part, the asymmetries that structure the space of world circulation of the translated works. In addition to the linguistic-literary capital and specifically literary logics, economic, political and cultural factors also interfere in the production, circulation and reception of the translated work in the target space. Several intermediaries participate in this process, such as the author, the translator, the editor, the literary agent and the critic.
Within the scope of this article, the purpose is to discuss the role of publishing houses as intermediaries of fundamental importance in the processes of choice, translation and circulation of Brazilian literature abroad during the period from 2000 to 2015. More precisely, we seek to identify the logic or reason that guides the performance of these agents in the international space where the translated works circulate. The discussion will focus more specifically on the target contexts of Germany, Spain, France, England and the United States, spaces studied, with the exception of France 5 , in the context of a scientific initiation research developed in conjunction with students of the Bachelor of Letters and the Bachelor of Translation at the Universidade Federal da Paraíba 6 . For each of these contexts, a database of translations of Brazilian literature was prepared, containing the following entries: author's name, title of the original, title of the translation, name of the translator, publisher in Brazil, publisher in the country of destination of 4 Our translation of: "Il s'agit du prestige, de la croyance proprement littéraire attachée à une langue, de la valeur qui lui est accordée littérairement et qui tiennent à son ancienneté, au prestige de sa poésie, au raffinement des formes littéraires élaborées dans cette langue, aux traditions, aux 'effets' littéraires liés notamment aux traductions et à leur nombre, etc. the translation, year of publication of the original, year of translation and literary genre. Each database was fed from a set of sources that varied according to the country, the main ones being: Index Translationum (Unesco database), online catalogs of national libraries, official pages of publishers available on the Internet, academic research, official reports, as well as websites selling books such as Amazon.com. Thus, the following numbers of translations published in each of the countries during the period studied were obtained (Table 1). The choice of the research project for a crosscutting analysis, taking the five countries together, made it possible to highlight aspects common to the different national contexts as well as certain specificities, bringing to light the reasons or conditions of circulation of Brazilian literature abroad. It is important, however, to point out the limits of such a perspective insofar as it elects the category "country" as the axis of observation, and not the "language". If, on the one hand, the choice made makes it possible to observe the path of translations and to identify, for example, the undeniable force of attraction exerted by Spain as an editorial center for translations into the Castilian language, on the other hand it compartmentalizes or separates some editorial realities that work inseparably, such as the British and US spaces. The cutout by country seemed more appropriate for the context of the research, since it allowed to highlight the political and economic dimension underlying the international circulation of works, a dimension related to factors such as the existence (or not) of state policies to support translations, the reorganization of editorial spaces increasingly divided between the large conglomerates and independent publishers, etc.

The logics governing the transnational circulation of translated works
The transnational circulation of cultural goods should be analysed in accordance with J.
Heilbron and G. Sapiro (2009), in function of the degree of autonomy of the fields of cultural/literary production of the countries concerned in relation to the political and economic fields. Thus, the circulation of works in translation will depend, in addition to cultural factors, on the structure of the national literary field -depending on whether or not it is dependent on the political and economic spheres -and on the modes of export and import in vogue. The pressure of economic and political logics varies, acting together in different proportions, depending on the context, that is, the degree of protection of the national market at a given moment, the place of culture, the political regime -whether a democracy or a dictatorship... (HEILBRON ;SAPIRO, 2009). The principle of economic profitability can therefore be imposed on properly aesthetic criteria and, in the same way, the political-ideological orientation can be superimposed as a criterion.
In this respect, research has shown that: -With the exception of Paulo Coelho, a veritable worldwide sales phenomenon, Brazilian literature translated abroad corresponds largely to national production celebrated by peers and specialized critics, characteristic of the restricted field of production or aesthetic pole (Bourdieu). This, however, does not imply that there are no economic pressures in the process...
-The Brazilian detective fiction enjoys a good acceptance abroad. Authors such as Patrícia Melo (the most translated Brazilian contemporary woman writer) and Luiz Alfredo García-Roza have most of their titles translated in the countries studied here. In this case, the market bias that accompanies the circulation and reception of the detective genre stands out, perceived as entertainment and fast consumption literature, a genre that has little legitimacy in the literate space.
-The translation operation into central languages, endowed with a greater linguistic-literary capital, is a consecration operation, as described by Casanova (1999). The works then circulate in a literary space of greater weight or prestige and, at the same time, compete with literature translated from other peripheral countries/languages. In this sense, the symbolic capital of the publishing house plays an important role, as will be discussed below.
-The greater participation of the Brazilian State in the Program to Support the Translation of Works Abroad is a political and institutional factor with an impact on the flow of translations of Brazilian literature, which has increased considerably since 2011, when it was restructured (DANTAS, 2018).
-Brazilian literature translated abroad is mostly produced by contemporary authors. It has been found that the classics are poorly translated.

The participation of publishing houses as intermediaries in the circulation of Brazilian works in translation
The action of publishing houses in the spaces of production and reception says much of the intricate process that selects or censors certain work, that is, the patronage, according to Lefevere (1992). Publishers largely define what will be translated and published, contributing greatly for the work to enter the circuit of circulation, reception and attribution of meanings in the field of reception.
In the United States and England, spaces known to be refractory to the publication of translations, as previously mentioned, the Companhia das Letras publishing house has its authors mostly published by three major commercial publishers (Bloomsbury, Grove Press and Henry Holt and Company), a small portion being translated by an academic publishing house (Texas University Press). In France, the translations of the authors of Companhia das Letras are published in the aesthetic pole of the literary field, and are divided in a very balanced way between large prestigious publishing structures (Gallimard and Actes Sud), a medium-sized publishing house (Métailié) and small independent publishers (Chandeigne and Anacaona). In Spain, the titles of Companhia das Letras have been translated by four publishers, two of which are independent (Rayo Verde Editorial and Maresia Libros) and two belonging to the Penguin Random House group (Alfaguara and Delbolsillo). As regards the German context, there is a greater diversity of publishing houses (six in all) with very diverse profiles, ranging from small, such as Assoziation A, to publishing houses belonging to large publishing groups such as Suhrkamp and S. Fisher.
Perceiving how other intermediaries involved in this process of transposing Brazilian literature beyond national borders act will enable a broader understanding of their social inscription in the spaces of reception or, in other words, an understanding of how the social process of producing meaning and valuing the translated works takes place. As Jean-Marc Gouanvic states (1999): As a cultural production, translation finds its social efficacy only in the logic of a market, i.e. when the decision to translate and the resulting product are legitimated by the response of the public and by the various instances of consecration, critical echo, possibly prizes and distinctions. In the translation initiative, the same agents are involved as in other cultural productions, with the addition of agents who make genres and discourses circulate beyond linguistic and national borders. (p. 17) 14 . Understanding the role of these agents, among whom publishing houses play a major role, also helps to understand the paradoxical place of Brazilian literature in the space of international circulation in the 21st century. Space in which, as Torres evoking Casanova states, this literature is considered both an "independent, autonomous" and a "minor" or "small" literature. (TORRES, 2004, p. 12).