Abstract
This article explores the role of marketing and, in particular, media reviewing, in the creation of literary value and the circulation of literature by examining how the Brazilian literary landscape is framed through the lens of the Anglophone press. A distinction is made between homogenizing, heterogenizing, and exoticizing tendencies in the marketing of translated fiction. Brazilian literature is found to be sometimes exoticized, presented as a way of vicariously experiencing a remote culture, as a form, in other words, of literary tourism. Comparing the cases where the literature is exoticized to those where it is homogenized as part of the international literary canon helps us understand how cultural differences are mobilized in order to create an image of a ‘national’ literature that appeals to the tourist gaze. Thus, this paper reveals the precise mechanisms through which media reviewing can contribute to both the consecration but also the devaluation of national(ized) literatures.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 245-260 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Translation Studies |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 21 Mar 2018 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2 Sept 2018 |
Keywords
- Brazilian literature
- exoticism
- homogenization
- literary value
- tourist gaze
- world literature
- book reviews
- landscape
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Literature and Literary Theory
- General Arts and Humanities
- Language and Linguistics