Paulo Rónai e o Mar de histórias: a prática crítico-literária de um intelectual húngaro no exílio

Abstract

This dissertation investigates Paulo Rónai’s critical-translational practice in Mar de histórias. Firstly, a historical trajectory of Rónai – who came to Brazil as an exile in 1941 – is outlined, from its origins in Hungary to the completion of this anthology – organized with Aurelio Buarque de Holanda Ferreira – in 1987. Concepts extracted from the domain of Literary Studies, Cultural Studies and Translation Studies are used, with emphasis on considerations about the foreigner, exile, hospitality and Bildung, developed respectively by Tzvetan Todorov, Paul Tabori, Jacques Derrida and Antoine Berman, among others. It locates Rónai in the current debate around the issue of ethics in translation, revealing convergent points between his thinking and the main theoretical propositions by Berman and Lawrence Venuti on the theme. Points of approach and distancing between the translation practice observed in some tales of Mar de histórias and that of Brazilian writers cum translators, previously dealt with by research carried out in the realm of the projetct Literary Translation: Power Play among Assymetric Cultures of the Postgraduation Course in Letters: Literary Studies of the University of Juiz de Fora are equally highlighted. Finally, it conceptually develops the idea of stylistic fidelity, defended by Rónai, showing its implementation by means of contrastive analyses, determining its relevance to a translation practice based on the ethics of difference.