Fiction and politics during wartime: the North-American translation project for the Brazilian literature (1943-1947)

Abstract This article analyses the translation project of Brazilian novels in the United States between 1943 and 1947 devised by the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. I will demonstrate that the project's pedagogical purpose foregrounded the representation of an agrarian and backward Brazil, which contrasted with the industrialised and modern United States. In order to do it analyse documents of the US State Department, the American Library Association and the American Council of Learned Society, and the personal papers of Dudley Poore, one of the translators who worked in the project.