Abstrakt
One of the current trends in the field of translation studies is to emphasize the cultural role of translation, as a phenomenon deeply linked to the target culture, its national literature, but also its history, social and political. The reception of specific foreign literatures and authors is also of interest to us, therefore, in order to know our own culture.
Jorge Amado (1935-2001) was the most translated Brazilian in the world in the 20th century. So far, 19 books by this Bahian author have been translated from Portuguese into Czech, of which 17 were published between the years 1948 and 1989 in communist Czechoslovakia. Although published during all the decades of the communist period in the country, most of the Czech translations were born at the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, during the Brazilian author's stay in Czechoslovakia, made as part of his participation in the World Peace Council.
The numbers of copies of Jorge Amado's books translated into Czech were high, for example, the first Czech edition of the novel "Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon" (Mulatka Gabriela, 1960) had 121,000 copies. In addition, some of of the novels were published in several editions and adaptations of the works for radio and television appeared.
What was behind the success of these Brazilian novels in Czechoslovakia? What power did the political influence on Czechoslovak literary culture have in this case? To what extent were reader preferences and the "exotic" element in exotic" element in the novels? We will bring a presentation of the reception of the writer's literary work based on the analysis of Czechoslovakian and Czech periodicals.