Analysis of the translation of ‘tenda dos milagres’ (tent of miracles) by jorge amado

Analysis of the translation of ‘Tenda dos Milagres’ (Tent of Miracles) by Jorge Amado – Fabiana Kanan Oliveira

Analyzing a translation is never an easy task. Many aspects should be taken into consideration, yet I believe the most important one is choosing the public; and mostly, a choice like that is made by the publisher and not by the translator. A translation should be made according to its target public, because such choice is going to define specific paths to be followed. The present work analyzes problems as well as good solutions of the preface of the book ‘Tenda dos Milagres’(Tent of Miracles), by the Brazilian Jorge Amado. The advantages and disadvantages of the use of literal translations is one of the main features of this study. The original text in Portuguese was published in 1969 and the translation to the English language was published in 1971 by the translator Barbara Shelby. There is a great deal of literal translation. It is possible to make a comparison of the prefaces analyzing one by one and finding each correspondent, since the macrostructure is exactly the same. As for the microstructure, taking a closer look at the translated text, one can find incongruences. The most perceptible ones concern proper names, both of people and places. Few adaptations are made in the target language, mostly with idiomatic expressions, for an instance, ‘from the beginning to end’ to be the equivalent of ‘de cabo a rabo’. The translation to English is mostly literal. The book ‘Tent of Miracles’ is a regional literature work which is a portrait of the city Salvador in Bahia State, Brazil’s black capital, and its customs – specially the religious customs, names of the orixás, which are secondary divinities from an African Brazilian cult - and therefore, subjects that do not correspond to the culture of the target language. In the preface, as well as in the entire book, most of religious beings and names of places are kept equal to the