<i>The Sun on My Head</i> by Geovani Martins: A Study in Criticism and Translation

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Artigo • Cad. Trad. 44 (1) • 2024 • https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2024.e96393 copy

The Sun on My Head by Geovani Martins: A Study in Criticism and Translation

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

O sol na cabeça (2018) is the first book published by Geovani Martins and it was readily received with critical acclaim, being promoted by Companhia das Letras, its publishing house in Brazil, as “the new Brazilian literary phenomenon sold to 9 countries”. Unlike many Brazilian works in translation, which take time to arrive in other languages, Martins’ book was translated and released just a year later in English, German, French and Spanish. This paper seeks to reflect on the role of dissemination and reception of this book in Brazil and in the English speaking world, in order to analyze the formation of an image of the writer and his work through rewriting, whether this be through critical reviews in Brazil and abroad, or through the English translation, done by Julia Sanches and published in 2019 by Farrar Straus & Giroux (USA) and Faber & Faber (UK). Specifically, the first part of this paper presents an analysis of the book’s paratextual materials, both those present in the work itself and those external to it, in addition to a brief analysis of the reviews published in the first months of the book’s launch. In the second part, a critique of the translation into English of the short story “Travessia” / “The Crossing” is carried out, focusing on the strategies that the translator used to retextualize the orality marks of the source text. The aim is thus to reflect on how a “literary phenomenon” is forged via criticism and translation, aligning itself with new views on Brazilian Portuguese and Brazilian literature.

Keywords
Brazilian literature in translation; orality marks; paratexts; translation criticism; Geovani Martins

“Travessia” (Martins, 2018bMartins, Geovani. (2018b). O sol na cabeça. Companhia das Letras.)	“The Crossing”, trad. Julia Sanches (Martins, 2019Martins, Geovani. (2019). The Sun on My Head. (J. Sanches, Trad.). Faber & Faber.)	Elemento linguístico do AAVE
“de pedir pra ficar portando uma pistola e tirar onda com as novinhas, geral é amigo” “é isso aí que tu tá vendo” “além de ser ruim que nem o cão, ainda tem proteção da polícia”	“when he asks to hold your gun ‘cause he’s hitting on a babe, then you tight” “this all they got for you?” “not only are they rotten to the bone, they under police protection, too”	Ausência do verbo to be na função auxiliar (zero copula)
“Não vou falar duas vezes” “que bandido burro é a pior raça que existe” “Feião morrer de vacilão de morro”	“Ain’t gonna tell you twice” “ain’t nothing worse in this world than a stupid-ass thug” “It ain’t pretty going down as a favela fuckup”	Uso do ain’t como negação
“não ia ganhar moral na firma nunca” “Geral tá ligado que bandido se cresce é na hora da trocação” “Não tinha ideia de onde ia dormir”	“no way was he ever gonna win the crew’s respect” “Everybody knows if a thug’s gonna earn their stripes, it’s in combat” “No idea where he was gonna sleep”	Eventos futuros marcados pela contração gonna (de going to)
“Foi o tempo que essa merda dava dinheiro” “o cara já tem mais BO nas costas do que cabelo na cabeça” “O morto ia dentro do porta-malas, todo espremido” “O foda era explicar o tanto de tiro que acertou no cara”	“(Ø) Time when this shit made you rich is long gone” “(Ø) Dude had a rap sheet longer than his arm” “(Ø) Dead guy was all bunched up in the trunk of the rolling Chevette” “(Ø) Trouble was having to explain all those bullet holes”	Substantivos sem determinante (bare nouns)

“Travessia” (Martins, 2018bMartins, Geovani. (2018b). O sol na cabeça. Companhia das Letras.)	“The Crossing”, trad. Julia Sanches (Martins, 2019Martins, Geovani. (2019). The Sun on My Head. (J. Sanches, Trad.). Faber & Faber.)
“Desde que tinha entrado pra boca, nunca tinha dado um tiro”	“Beto hadn’t fired his gun once since he’d started dealing in the bocas”
“Um tiro bem dado e a gente já era”	“All it took was a straight shot and tchau, you’re toast”
“a pé num podia levar o cara, de mototáxi também não”	“not like he could walk the body out or hitch it a ride on a mototaxi”
“Ficava fingindo que palmeava os becos quando terminava o baile”	“Sometimes, still buzzing from a baile funk, he’d pretend to stake out alleys”
“Não ia demorar pra eles se ligarem que Beto trabalhava na boca, e aí, meu amigo, era papo de tortura e os caralho se o dinheiro não Brotasse”	“Wouldn’t be long before they clocked that Beto was working at the boca, and then, meu amigo, it’d be talk of all kinds of torture if the dough didn’t show”
“sempre correndo pra cima e pra baixo, brincando de Bob Teco, matando ratos com a atiradeira”	“always scampering up and down, playing with Bob Teco, sling-shooting rats”

Texto-fonte: “Travessia” (Martins, 2018bMartins, Geovani. (2018b). O sol na cabeça. Companhia das Letras.)	Texto-alvo: “The Crossing”, trad. Julia Sanches (Martins, 2019Martins, Geovani. (2019). The Sun on My Head. (J. Sanches, Trad.). Faber & Faber.)
“tirar onda com as novinhas” “Olhava os becos, geral na rua, os cachaceiros, os maconheiros, os crentes, as novinhas”	“cause he’s hitting on a babe” “He glanced at the alleys, at folks on the street, the cachaça-drinking drunks, the stoners, the believers, the girls”
“Tava queimadão lá no morro” “Isso aprendeu lá no morro”	“He was scorched on the hill now” “That he’d learned on the hill”
“Sabia que aquele gerente tava de rixa com ele”	“He knew the lieutenant had it in for him”
“Agora tá nesse perrengue de ter que sumir com o presunto” “Quando vissem o presunto, pronto, já iam querer arrumar também o da compra do mês” “se contasse pra eles que o presunto era a merda de um viciado, talvez aliviassem”	“Now he’s gone and got himself into the fix of figuring out how to dump the corpse” “And if they peeped the body, that was it, they’d try and squeeze him for the month’s groceries” “if he told them the dead guy was a junkie piece of shit, they’d go easy on him”

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Campus da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina/Centro de Comunicação e Expressão/Prédio B/Sala 301 - Florianópolis - SC - Brazil
E-mail: suporte.cadernostraducao@contato.ufsc.br

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