Author Description

This volume is a result of the need to reflect upon Portugal's position from the viewpoint of the literary assets imported and exported through translation. It brings together a number of scholars working in the field of translation studies directly concerned with the Portuguese cultural system in order to analyse this question from various theoretical perspectives and from case studies of translation flows and movements in Portuguese culture. By Translating Portugal Back and Forth, the articles discuss issues such as: how can one draw the borderline between a peripheral and a semi-peripheral system? Is this borderline useful or necessary? How peripheral is the Portuguese cultural system as far as translation transfers are concerned? How stable or pacific has this positioning been? Does the economic and historical perception of Portugal as peripheral entail that, from the viewpoint of translation, it would behave similarly to other languages? By addressing some of these questions, and as shown by the (second) subtitle--Essays in Honour of Joao Ferreira Duarte--the volume pays homage to one of the most prominent translation studies scholars in Portugal, who has extensively reflected on the binary discourse on translation, its metaphors and images.