Forty Years Later: Translating Erotic Writing Into a Different Age Marina Zorzetto Thesis submitted to the University of Ottawa in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s degree in Translation Studies School of Translation and Interpretation Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa © Marina Zorzetto, Ottawa, Canada, 2021 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. v INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 About the author .......................................................................................................... 3 About the book ............................................................................................................. 5 ORIGINAL BOOK .......................................................................................................... 8 Cover ........................................................................................................................... 8 Vamos brincar de gatinho? ........................................................................................ 10 Algo alucinante apoderava-se de mim ....................................................................... 14 Ela parecia uma fada iluminada ................................................................................. 19 O meu estranho mundo secreto ................................................................................. 29 Os homens preferem as lésbicas ............................................................................... 51 Nós estamos sempre sós na multidão, mas o nosso mundo é lindo! ........................ 64 No Carnaval, tudo acontece muito rápido .................................................................. 77 Até que ponto uma criança é inocente? ..................................................................... 90 A criança é o verdadeiro “monstro sagrado” ............................................................ 108 TRANSLATION .......................................................................................................... 119 Do you want to play pussy cats? .............................................................................. 119 Wrapped in an insane feeling ................................................................................... 123 She looked like a glowing fairy ................................................................................. 127 My strange secret world ........................................................................................... 136 Gentlemen prefer lesbians ....................................................................................... 155 We are always alone in the crowd, but out world is beautiful ................................... 165 Everything happens so fast during Carnaval ............................................................ 177 How innocent is a child, really? ................................................................................ 188 A child is the real “sacred monster” .......................................................................... 204 ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................. 214 Review of literature ................................................................................................ 214 Analysis .................................................................................................................. 220 iii Translating erotica into my B-language ........................................................... 224 Self-censoring “sensitive” passages................................................................ 235 Translation fun facts .......................................................................................... 242 FINAL CONSIDERATIONS ....................................................................................... 246 BIBLOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 248 iv ABSTRACT In 1981, only two years after the end of the harshest years of government censorship in Brazil, the controversial erotica writer Cassandra Rios published the novel “Eu sou uma Lésbica” (I am a Lesbian), which is considered to this day her most polemical book. After being censored multiple times and consequently bankrupted by the military dictatorship for writing about female, and more specifically lesbian, sexuality, it seems that Rios saw the relaxation of censorship laws as a way of taking revenge on the system that had persecuted her for years. She released a book with much more subversive topics than her usual output. The book narrates the coming of age of a lesbian living in São Paulo, and presents themes like violence against LGBT people, pedophilia, fetishism, and the narrator’s perceptions of discrimination. This thesis is based on the translation of this work for a Canadian 2020 audience. In it, I discuss the specificities involved in translating into one’s second language, the choices regarding adaptation of cultural aspects of a source text that comes from a culture considered more marginal than the target one, the issues that the translator goes through when faced with sensitive topics, and the political power of female-written erotica. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following for their support during my academic journey: My amazing mother Ednalva Santana for lifelong and unconditional support in every possible way. My supervisor Luise von Flotow for providing me with the perfect balance between guidance and autonomy, and for, through her books, having presented me with the possibility of studying the peculiarities of translating women from the very beginning of my translation studies. My undergrad research supervisor Melissa Baffi-Bonvino, for showing me the impact a teacher can make in someone’s life. My friend Lucas Moreira for making sure I did not vanish from the face of the Earth during my writing process. And, last but not least, my cat Edgar Allan Poe for being my faithful companion at all times. 1 INTRODUCTION From my first couple of months as an undergraduate student, I was already interested in the subject of translating women. I did not find much information on gender and translation through my Bachelor’s courses, so I went on to find literature on the theme on my own. Even though I could find a reasonable number of books written on the topic, I noticed a lack of studies in the area when it came to Brazilian literature. That being the case, I decided that I would study the translation of Brazilian literature written by women once my BA was over. Not only that, but considering my own political beliefs and opinions on what the military dictatorship did to the country, especially in the culture department, since a large number of my favorite artists had had trouble with the section of the government which was responsible for censorship, I was very inclined towards choosing a censored piece or author. Having been given the choice to get my Master’s degree in another country, I decided Canada would be the perfect fit especially due to the high value at which freedom and democracy are held in the country. The fact that Canada has never gotten even close to becoming a dictatorship, much less one that has the military in power, got me really excited for two reasons: the first was knowing that I would never have to worry about having an issue with the theme of my thesis and my personal safety or my permanence in academia. I can see now that these worries were unfounded, but right before the election of the current Brazilian president, which is when my studies began, the political atmosphere in the country was fearful and confused, and no one really knew how bad the shift to conservatism would be during the next couple of years. 2 The second reason why the distance between Canada and conservatism called my attention was the opportunity to bring information and awareness on how bad things can get when freedom and democracy are not the core values of a nation. Even though I ended up choosing a piece that was not written under or about censorship, the anger Rios felt for being taken from her place as a popular, even renowned writer to bankruptcy and infamy can be felt throughout the narrative. Cassandra Rios was not an obvious choice. Even having a lifelong interest in Brazilian literature, I had never heard about her and her work. This was probably due to a combination of the facts that she was never considered an erudite writer, even by the most progressive Brazilian intellectuals, and the sensitivity of the topics she approached in her books. Through sixteen years of formal education in Brazil, I was not once presented with a book that dealt with LGBT romantic or sexual relationships explicitly, even during higher education. It was only after starting my postgraduate studies and beginning the search for a work to base my thesis on that I came across Rios’ work. She does figure in plenty of lists of writers that were persecuted by the military, and is known for having been the artist who had the largest number of censored pieces during the ten harshest years of the regime: thirty-six books. Even though it eventually destroyed her career, she did use the persecution