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1. Introduction

During the Second World War, the United States Department of State approached Latin American countries to seek support for the Allied cause, establishing a series of economic, commercial and cultural policies based on a discourse to better understand each other, to promote friendship between the American countries and, therefore, hemispheric solidarity – also known as the Good Neighbor Policy – to fight the spread of Nazi-Fascist power in Europe. Cultural programs between the United States and Latin American countries, subsidised by the former through the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (henceforth OCIAA), have been widely explored in the field of History, International Relations, Sociology, Communication, Arts and Literature.[1]

In Translation Studies, an investigation into OCIAA-funded translations of Brazilian novels (1941-1946) showed that the selection of books to be translated was controlled by a committee formed by US State Department officials and members nominated by the OCIAA. They chose novels set in jungles, backlands and empty spaces, representing an agrarian, hostile and backward country, which was the opposite image of the US as an industrial and modern country portrayed in books, films and magazines at that time. It emulated the US superiority as a leader of the American countries and ultimately revealed an ideological agenda and asymmetrical power relations in a war context (Morinaka 2020).

Other Latin American countries exchanged fiction with the US, but the particular period covered by this article is in need of further research. Deborah Cohn (2006) examined documents from the Rockefeller Archive Center related to two US translation programs for Latin American literature in the 1960s and 1970s; María Constanza Guzmán (2010) used Gregory Rabassa’s archives to analyse his work as a translator during the Latin American literary boom (second half of the twentieth century); and in another article, Guzmán (2014) researched Gregory Rabassa, Suzanne Jill Levine and Sergio Waisman’s archives to look into their practice as literary translators and agents of Latin American fiction; Elizabeth Lowe (2013) focused her research on Jorge Amado and his influence on domestic production for export (second half of the twentieth century); Sarah Pollack (2013) examined the reception of Roberto Bolaño’s work within a context that informed the conceptualisation of cultural identities shaping the politics of translation in the US (beginning of twenty-first century); Lenita Esteves (2016) analysed the reception of Brazilian literature in English and the importance of institutional and individual agency in the process, especially in the second half of the twentieth century; and Francisco Vargas Gómez (2018) examined Costa Rican short stories translated into English in the second half of the twentieth century.[2]

As there is little archival research on translation between countries of unequal political power during the Second World War, this case study hopes to help fill the gap and expand our understanding of literature in translation as part of a bilateral or multilateral cultural exchange and editors’ and translators’ practices under these circumstances. Therefore, this article aims to unfold and analyse the process of organising the anthology of Latin American prose Fiesta in November, edited by Angel Flores and Dudley Poore, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1942 under the auspices of the OCIAA, and the role played by the editor and translators in an operation controlled by the US State Department.

For this, I use documents from the National Archives and Records Administration II (NARA II), in College Park (MD), and Dudley Poore’s Papers, located at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Yale, New Haven (CT), in the United States, which contain unpublished correspondence between Poore and the translators, the chief editor of Houghton Mifflin (hereafter HM) and the staff from the OCIAA Publication Section. The latter set of documents opens some windows on translation projects of such nature from the editor’s and translators’ perspectives, as well as serving to discover more about some of the translators’ biographies.

According to Jeremy Munday (2013: 125), literary archives and manuscript materials are “underexploited in translation studies to date.” He states that “for literary translation studies purposes, the most fruitful archives are generally state censorship files or the business records of a publisher. These will typically include details of the commissioning and production of individual books and series, contracts, costs, sales figures, and so on” (Munday 2013: 127). The importance of such material has indeed attracted scholars and yielded many excellent studies on censorship and repression in a totalitarian regime or during authoritarian periods. Some examples are collections of articles that (a) explored modes of overt and covert censorship in translation in European countries in various periods (Billiani 2007a); and (b) examined translations in Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal (Rundle and Sturge 2010); and books that (a) analysed children’s literature and translated books from socialist and English-speaking countries in the German Democratic Republic (Thomson-Wohlgemuth 2009); and (b) examined archival material to uncover the history of English fiction translated in the Polish People’s Republic (Looby 2015). In April 2021, Meta: Journal of Translators published “Translation Archives” (Volume 66, Number 1), which contains articles that reflect upon and investigate the use of archives in Translation Studies and the various approaches researchers have been taking.

However, archival research on literature in translation in a war context does not seem to be a common theme in Translation History, unlike in Cultural or Social History and Literature. They are most commonly sheltered under the umbrella term ‘cultural war,’ especially when it concerns US book programs during the Cold War.[3] Some of the key issues scrutinised in these studies are cultural relations, US hegemony in the postwar period, asymmetrical relations between countries, cultural war, cultural Cold War, power relations, neo-liberalism and ideology exported through cultural products. Scholarship has investigated the state-private networks that shared common interests with US public diplomacy to combat communism and anti-Americanism, especially during the Cold War, pointing at cultural products tailored as ideological propaganda (Cohn 2006, 2012; Oliveira 2015; Barnhisel 2015; and Laugesen 2017).

In this article, I address issues pertinent to literary translation and translators and their performance within a particular cultural exchange – between the US and Latin American countries – in the context of war, in this case, the Second World War. Therefore, from the field of Translation Studies, I reflect upon concepts of manipulation (Hermans 1984; Lefevere 1992), patronage and anthologising (Lefevere 1992; Cheung 2003; and Seruya, D’hulst, et al. 2013), censorship and self-censorship (Billiani 2007b) as well as policies (D’hulst, O’Sullivan and Schreiber 2016) to ask the following questions: What was the translation project subsidised by the US State Department and how did it function? Were there instructions or limits concerning the choice of authors and works to be translated and included in the anthology? Did the editors and translators have the autonomy to choose or suggest authors and texts for the anthology? Were there any different practices from what was established by the patron? What was the reception of Fiesta in November like?

I have claimed in previous research (Morinaka 2020, 2021 and 2022) that the fully functioning state-private network during the Cold War was already practiced during WWII. My approach to Latin American literature translated into the US during WWII through this case study tries to understand the extent to which any US ideological agenda helped shape Latin American literature in translation and informed the editor and translator’s practice. The following sections of the article will demonstrate not only the coordinated actions but also the divergent ideas that underlay the cultural exchange between the US and Latin America in the 1940s and the role played by the editors and translators in this process. It initially examines the OCIAA translation project in general, before focusing on the anthology Fiesta in November. After this, it turns to Dudley Poore’s work as an editor and reveals some translation practices. The final section of the paper examines the reception of Fiesta in November to show the extent to which the OCIAA manipulated its agents in the whole process of the literary exchange.

2. Translation projects subsidised by the US State Department in the 1940s

This section examines the context in which the editor and the translators worked, particularly the project proposed by the OCIAA and the web of agents and institutions involved in this cultural relation.[4] To undertake this task, I analysed documents found at NARA II, which shed some light on the US State Department’s translation policies.

The translation of Latin American literature was part of a cultural program implemented during WWII by the OCIAA, directly subordinated to the US State Department. The Department of Publications, through councils nominated by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), was responsible for choosing the books to be translated, constituting the first round of the process. After selection, the Joint Committee, composed of a council with representatives from the OCIAA, the ACLS and the State Department, decided whether to approve them. The analysis of many letters exchanged between the OCIAA and the Joint Committee demonstrates that the State Department had the final say in the process. This practice contradicts the much-defended government impartiality and the intellectual autonomy that was said to regulate the decisions, which was endorsed repeatedly by associates and coordinators with the OCIAA (Morinaka 2020).

A 1943 memorandum entitled Government Publishing in Wartime, prepared by the American Library Association (henceforth ALA),[5] stated that the US government’s responsibilities as a publisher would be in these four categories “(A) Administrative, legislative and judicial reporting; (B) Administrative rules, regulations and announcements; (C) Information and Education; and (D) Research” (ALA 1943: 1). Due to a shortage of paper and emergency publications in a war context, there was no room left for works of fiction, not to mention the fact that this would resemble “patronage” in monarchical systems – resorting to Lefevere’s term. Literary texts controlled or published by a democratic state could be seen as something very suspicious in a country where freedom of expression and freedom of the press are in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. To corroborate this argument, I quote Harry Frantz, director of the OCIAA Press Division: “The government itself cannot operate in this field because strictly literary materials are suspect if coming from any governmental agencies. Editors look for concealed policy and act accordingly” (Morinaka 2020: 171). Therefore, to speed up the process and guarantee its supposed impartiality, the OCIAA counted on a partnership with private publishing houses or university presses to publish translations of fiction and poetry. It should be noted that these publishing houses could not afford losses during the hardship of the war and it was known that government projects could generate solid profits.

The OCIAA Press Division established the policies for subsidies in an umbrella project, which included the translation of “outstanding books from and about the other American Republics” into English. The subsidies exclusively covered translation costs, while the publishing houses had to pay for publication, advertising and distribution. According to the project, books from “other Americas” had not been properly valued in the US, therefore, the OCIAA would encourage interest in important books in Spanish and Portuguese. It would also “provide writers with a new market for their works thus encouraging, in general, the cause of literature and building up new channels for inter-American understanding” (Morinaka 2020: 175-176).

Works of fiction that could not be published by the government press could be included in this project. Although there were no explicit restrictions on authors or texts, the State Department would set the tone and choose “appropriate” works to achieve their main goal – a better understanding of each other’s culture for hemispheric solidarity. In my book about Brazilian literature translated under the auspices of the OCIAA, I demonstrated that Menotti del Picchia, an author who had been connected with a Brazilian fascist movement in the 1930s, was not translated at that time. The OCIAA presumably thought he could have inserted fascist propaganda into his fiction, which was not appropriate at that time as the Allies were fighting for democracy against totalitarian regimes. I also claim that the OCIAA issued a pedagogical stamp in each novel, by instrumentally using Brazilian literature in translation to know the country and its culture.

The OCIAA chose to translate books that represented the external Brazilian environment to fulfill the needs of an audience interested in learning about who their allied fellows were and how they lived.[6] Expanding the scope of analysis and looking at novels from other Latin America countries which were awarded prizes or translated within similar projects – Jimenez de Quesada, by German Anciniegas (1939), La Quintrala, by Magdalena Petit (1931), Chile: Una loca geografia, by Benjamin Subercasceux (1940), just to mention a few – we can notice that they portray an agrarian universe where the Latin-American peoples supposedly lived. The representation of countries with little or no prospect of betterment or development due to geographic conditions of isolation and immobility in desert regions, impenetrable jungles, or wetlands contrasted with the urban progress and industrialisation in the US. In this sense, the pivotal and inevitable North American leadership would thus start to take shape at least at an imaginary level. Many OCIAA documents declare that private and university publishing houses would handle the selection process, but the final decision was taken by the State Department (Morinaka 2020).

The publication of translations alone would not have been sufficient to raise US readers’ interest in the unknown Latin American writers. For this reason, the OCIAA operated on various fronts to achieve greater effectiveness in the dissemination of translations by promoting the formation of a publishers’ association; mediating the exchange of Latin American books and journals in universities and libraries; giving prizes for the best Latin American books; and supporting and awarding grants for research and activities in Latin American Centers in universities and intercultural institutes.

2.1 Fiesta in November: compiling a Latin-American anthology

The act of rewriting takes up many forms such as “translation, historiography, anthologization, criticism, and editing” (Lefevere 1992: 9). Collecting and displaying literary texts in anthologies “are recognized processes of cultural identity formation” (Seruya, D’hulst, et al. 2013: 1) and they can be attributed functions according to different purposes: pleasure, educational, preservation, creation of a national cultural memory and cannon, innovation, protection, structuring, accessibility, dissemination, subjective purposes and profit. Anthologies, thus, become first order objects to study the “underlying criteria for selection and restructuring, the underlying taste of individual agents or of the community they belong to, of publishing and book-market mechanisms, of fluctuations in cultural importance, as second order objects” (Seruya, D’hulst, et al. 2013: 5). Since I have been researching translation projects with a pedagogical objective financed by the US government in the 1940s and showing the asymmetrical relations of political power among them, I tend to agree that anthologies, specifically whether as a creative process or a gateway to a subject, have been shaped by “larger historical forces” (Feng 2019: 688), and as “an act of (re)presentation/representation, mediation and/or intervention, […] cross-cultural understanding is never an innocent matter” (Cheung 2003: 2). In this sense, the collected texts or poems create a representation of a genre, a specific period, or certain countries that embody the political and historical context in which they have been published, as is the case of Fiesta in November.

The Houghton Mifflin (HM) anthology project, presented to the OCIAA in 1940, aimed at collecting the most representative texts from the American Republics covering the widest selection as possible for pedagogical purposes. Following the goals and guidelines established in the umbrella project, according to the proposal submitted by HM for the OCIAA, the anthology aimed to “serve as an introduction to North American readers of contemporary South American literature” and “to introduce to North American publishers, authors in South America whose work, aside from that represented in the anthology, may interest them for translation and publication in this country.”[7] It was intended to have between 800 and 1,000 pages and include the widest possible range and variety of novels, short stories, essays, biographies, histories and poems. It was approved by the OCIAA Committee on Publication in January 1941 and presented to the Executive Committee in April “with the request for an appropriation not to exceed US $3,000.”

Considering the importance of specialists in Latin American literature and North American reception, it is stated in the HM proposal that they chose Dr. Angel Flores (1900-1992),[8] a Puerto Rican literary critic with “an incomparable knowledge of the whole of Latin American literature,” who would be the first to select the materials, representing the South American point of view. Dudley Poore (1893-1982), poet and translator, would narrow down the selection from the perspective of the North American reader. “His sense of the taste of the American public makes him an ideal person for the American editor.” Poore would also select the translators for each work and if necessary, edit the translations. As a project subsidised by the government, the final decision would be made by Flores and Poore in collaboration with a member of the OCIAA Committee on Publications and a member of the HM Editorial Board.

Finally, it is described in the proposal that the stylistic revision would be the responsibility of the well-known short story writer Katherine Anne Porter, whose knowledge of Spanish would allow her to check the translations against the original. Porter revised the translations and wrote the preface to the anthology, which will be examined in the next section. As Latin American literature was not known in the United States, famous authors and scholars were sometimes invited to write prefaces to translations and reviews on translated Latin American works. William Du Bois, for example, a famous sociologist in the US, who had just published Dusk of Dawn (1940) and was preparing Color and Democracy (1945), wrote a review for Crossroads (1943), translated by Louis C. Kaplan, a translation of the Brazilian novel Caminhos Cruzados (1935), by Erico Verissimo, the first novel published under the auspices of the OCIAA (Morinaka 2020).

In a letter from R. N. Linscott to John Peale Bishop,[9] we learn that HM would print 5,000 copies of the first edition and each volume would be sold at not more than US $3.50. One strategy involved in publicising the books was asking influential people for favours. Manley H. Jones requested Kenneth Holland’s help to make the book known among US colleges and asked for a list of “names of institutions offering a course in Latin American Literature (in translation) or Latin American Culture.”[10] The publishing house was surely interested in sending its catalogues to such institutions to increase their sales and profit as they knew libraries in Latin American centres were also receiving state subsidies to expand their collections. Publishers could not afford losses at such hard times despite the translation subsidy. Gisèle Sapiro who investigated the French literary market for translation explains that:

Most series of foreign literature of quality generate losses – apart from American and English authors, whom only large publishers can afford to publish: the investments are seldom recovered in the first exploitation: sales stagnate around 1,500-2,000 copies, whereas 3,000 are needed to redeem the translation and manufacturing expenses. This is why publishers strictly limit the number of translations in a year and often ask for institutional or State support. These publications at loss are compensated for by more commercial translations or by the exploitation of the backlist.

Sapiro 2003: 453; emphasis added

HM was aware that the US government used to purchase copies to distribute them among influential US and Latin American leaders and intellectuals. Even so, publishers knew that these translations would not make a quick profit. They actually had something else in mind and were making postwar plans. A group of the most important US editors traveled around Latin America in 1942, writing a report in which they predicted a potential market for American books after the end of the war. The cultural exchange of translating Latin American books would not bring immediate returns, but it was certainly seen as a route to be opened for future trade and profit. (For a detailed analysis of the presence of North American books in Brazil, cf. Morinaka 2019b).

3. ‘Listening’ to Dudley Poore: a short biography

Translators’ papers, unless they are well-known or established translators, are not commonly kept or found. This is one of the reasons why there is little archival research available in Translation History (Munday 2013). Fortunately, Dudley Poore’s papers have survived and can tell us part of the editor’s and the translators’ perspectives on their practice and participation in organising Fiesta in November, removing them from the invisibility of their occupations. From the letters exchanged we learn that they were fully committed to the work they had been assigned, as shall also be seen in Section 4.

The anthology project was completed upon its publication in 1942, but Dudley Poore continued exchanging letters with people who were or had been somehow connected with the OCIAA. As the content of most of these letters was related to his availability to work on similar projects, this demonstrates that Poore saw an opportunity to use his skills with foreign languages as a translator and his knowledge of Latin-American literature in future projects subsidised by the government as a possible source of income.

Little is known of Dudley Poore’s life and career, except for what can be found in his letter to Charles A. Thomson, from the Division of Cultural Relations at the OCIAA, in which he provided a short biography that seems more of a résumé in an attempt to find work with the government.[11] Poore was born in 1893, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he attended public schools, finishing his preparatory schooling at Phillips Andover Academy. In 1917, he graduated from Harvard College and, two years later, attended Emanuel College at the University of Cambridge, England. He also published poetry in The New Republic, a liberal and progressive magazine during this period.

In 1918, having enlisted in the US Army at Tours, France, Poore worked as a courier, carrying documents from Versaille to Brest. Despite being discharged from the Army at Gievres, France, a year later, in July 1919, he did not return home. He spent ten years living in Spain, Italy, England and France, studying history, languages and literature. During his sojourn in Europe, he wrote many poems and contributed to periodicals in the US, The Dial, and The Arts. After returning to the US, in the 1930s, Poore became an instructor in English at Harvard, “teaching writing in English with the history and appreciation of the forms of English literature.” During this time, he traveled many times to Portugal, Mexico and Cuba, where he became acquainted with Latin-American literature and history.

In the 1940s, he started working with the OCIAA, whose activities were “more and more those of a specialist in the literature of Latin-American countries.” If he seemed to have achieved some success in his endeavours, Poore said that it was due to “[…] my long acquaintance with the traditions of classic European culture in the widest sense, to my thorough familiarity with the history of taste, and to my professional experience as a writer of English (Poore 1943: 2). After briefly describing his experience with languages and literature, he detailed his experience with Fiesta in November and the anthology of contemporary Latin-American poetry, published by New Directions.

In Fiesta in November, the anthology of contemporary Latin-American fiction published by the Houghton Mifflin Company, the final choice of contents was in my hands, as was the task of negotiating with the translators, supervising their work, revising their translations, and seeing the volume through the press. In the anthology of contemporary Latin-American poetry, published by New Directions, the entire Brazilian section was likewise in my hands, selections and translations alike.

Poore 1943: 2

Most of Poore’s letters were written from where he lived, Marietta, a small village near Lake Ontario in Onondaga County in New York state. In none of these letters do we find his opinions or views on war or politics, and it seems the anthology project followed its ordinary course, except for the rush to complete it. Poore played safe and did not innovate nor make any deft movements. Dudley Poore was fully engaged in a challenging task involving choosing appropriate translators for each text, negotiating with translators and the HM editor, revising translations and making last-minute arrangements. On the other hand, translators were committed to a strict deadline and commented on translation difficulties and strategies, preferences on authors and stories, and troubling thoughts. They were professionals amongst the many qualified US citizens who tried to make a living out of their abilities with languages in times of war. However, as a highly qualified professional with domestic and foreign experience, Dudley Poore sought recognition for the work he had done, a theme that will be explored in Section 5.

4. ‘Listening’ to the editor and translators

The title of the Argentine novel Fiesta en Noviembre (1938), written by Eduardo Mallea (1903-1982), was used to name the anthology. Alis de Sola[12], a translator from New York City, and Dudley Poore seem to have had doubts about it. De Sola recommended The Season Opens, instead of A Party in November, probably suggested by Poore, but they decided on a more foreign and appealing title, Fiesta in November. Two other longer novellas were translated and included at the beginning of the anthology. They are Don Goyo (1933), written by the Ecuadorian Demetrio Aguilera Malta (1909-1981) and translated as Don Goyo by Enid Eder Perkins, and the Peruvian El Gaviota (1930), by José Diez-Canseco (1904-1949), rendered by Harriet de Onís as Gaviota. The initial plan of 800 to 1,000 pages was reduced to 608 pages, leaving no more room for whole novels or novellas. Also included in the anthology were short stories or chapters of novels or novellas, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1

Novellas and short stories in the anthology translated to English

Novellas and short stories in the anthology translated to English
Source: Poore and Flores (1942)[13]

-> See the list of tables

From this point forward, the most recurrent themes in the correspondence provide an outlook on translators’ practices, the translation process and how some decisions were made to comply with the patron’s expectations.

4.1. “Meagre” pay, coordinating the work, managing the time and preferences

Dudley Poore could only start hiring translators after the contract between the State Department and HM had been signed, but we find letters he sent some translators dating from May, 1941. They are mostly introduction letters explaining the type of project and asking translators if they would be willing to work on that summer project at a rate of five dollars a thousand words. What worried him, apart from the short time for the translation and revision, was the amount HM paid the translators. In various letters we find sentences such as: “Though this, I realize only too well, is far less than our distinguished translators deserve, I greatly hope that you will care to help us nevertheless.”[14] And, “The pay five dollars a thousand words is meagre and is no inducement in itself, but I hope you may be free and willing to help us nevertheless.”[15] Many replies from translators did not mention this “meagre rate,” whereas others openly complained about it: “Would the Don Goyo be on the same terms, or can you get an offer that comes somewhat closer to ‘a living wage’?”[16]

The following excerpt can be found in de Kay’s letter to Poore right after the translation and revision had been completed, revealing that, unlike the others, de Kay’s income as a translator might have been a great part of his income “I hope you can speed up payment. Things are tight!”[17] To which Poore replied “I myself have been paid only one tiny check since weeks before I left New York. I could not have fed myself since then, even in the country, if my village grocer had not been willing to wait for this pay. He is still waiting.”[18] This delay in the payment was due to the contract with the OCIAA which stipulated that payment would be made after all the translated texts had been delivered.

Besides regular correspondence with ten translators working on different texts to a strict deadline, Dudley Poore had to deal with translators giving up at short notice as some of them also worked as teachers, professors or were in diplomatic careers. They did not have translation as a primary source of income and agreed on the task because they wished to disseminate Latin American literature in North Americans, enjoyed translating or wanted to support somehow the war effort. Donald Walsh, who would be later known for translating Pablo Neruda and Ernesto Cardenal (New Direction 2020), for example, worked for a school[19] and had to refuse to translate Don Goyo.

Another batch of poems arrived from Fitts, and this is a job to which I am already committed. (…) Last two weeks in September will be occupied with arranging schedules for the opening of school. So, I’m afraid that I could not have the Don Goyo translated by October 1. I am sorry to give up the chance to work on it, and I should still like to be considered, if date of publication is not a vital matter. Or perhaps you have other novels to be published later in the fall that I could do.

Walsh 1941[20]

At the beginning of September, due to Walsh’s withdrawal, Poore had to hire another translator, Enid Eder Perkins, who worked as the Chancellor of the Nicaraguan Legation. This work allowed her only the afternoons free, leaving no time for “any rush work,” although she thought “translating a fascinating job and would like to continue.”[21] In the end, Perkins was able to deliver the 195-page translation on time.

Another example is Edward G. Trueblood who had to quit because he was leaving on a mission to Mexico City and would not be able to translate Costa du Rels’ “La Misk’isimi.”[22] The task was, therefore, reassigned to Elizabeth Wallace, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, who finished the translation in six days. She was interested to know how he selected the material because

[d]uring the last ten years I have devoted much time to Latin-American literature, and have been richly rewarded by finding fine specimens of interpretive writing may I dare to say? much better than La Misqui-Simi. Please forgive my critical attitude and let me be of service to your committee. I have been in nearly all the southern Republics and have lived in two of them.

Wallace 1941[23]

This portion of the letter shows that although translators did not have a say in the selection for the anthology, they confided their opinion to Poore. Wallace wrote enthusiastically about contemporary Latin-American authors that could be included in anthologies in case there was another project such as that one. Dudley Poore himself expressed his views on Brazilian stories on two different occasions, the first about Monteiro Lobato’s short stories:

I have no good short stories by the younger Brazilians. I do not think stories of Monteiro Lobato good enough. And though I know the work of some of the Brazilian novelists who have come on the scene since Monteiro Lobato began to write, there is no room in the book for anything so long as those things would be.

Poore 1941[24]

The other mention is about Mar Morto:

You’ll remember Kelsey’s sentence on Jorge Amado: ‘praised and damned as the Brazilian Hemingway’ I think she said. I do not see in him the slightest resemblance to Hemingway. Amado is lyrical, plaintive, erotic, in the soft Brazilian way. I am in no sense a great admirer of the book myself; but Mr. Flores, who suggested it, feels that a sample of it, at least, should be included.

Poore 1941[25]

As connoisseurs of Latin American authors and literature, Dudley Poore and some translators were not reticent about their preferences. They openly expressed their fondness for more aesthetically appealing texts than those they were working with. Despite not being stated in any official document, the editors, on the other hand, were aware of the political situation and had to make sure that the Latin American writers were not affiliated with fascist groups – communist writers were not an issue at that time – otherwise, they could have run the risk of having texts suppressed from the anthology when presenting it to the Joint Committee. This falls into the realm of self-censorship examined in Billiani’s article (2007b).

4.2. The political context that led to the removal of Augusto Céspedes’ “El Pozo” and publishing house policies

Angel Flores had selected three Bolivian short stories: “El Pozo,” by Augusto Céspedes, which had already been translated by Enid Eder Perkins, “La Madre de Satanás,” by Juan Francisco Bedregal, and “La Misqui-Simi,” by Costa du Rels, which had not been translated at that point. Dudley Poore stated in his letter to the translator Elizabeth Wallace:

Of these I preferred El Pozo, but had scarcely chosen it when the author was arrested for his alleged share in a recent Nazi coup directed against the US defense program; and I felt I could not properly include his work. La Madre de Satanás a trifle of 600 words seemed hardly significant to matter and I was left with La Misqui-Simi.

Poore 1941[26]

It can be noticed that the inclusion of a writer allegedly connected with the Nazis would not be welcomed by the State Department, which probably made Poore choose a short story of minor importance for the anthology, but whose author was a respectable public figure. [27] A similar concern underlay the translation of Brazilian literature in the same period. After an extensive survey of Brazilian authors translated to English in the twentieth century, I concluded that Menotti del Picchia did not have any books chosen for the translation projects in the 1940s. In a memo exchanged amongst associates in the publication section, he was identified for having co-authored a book with Plínio Salgado, a politician connected with the Integralists, a Brazilian fascist and nationalist group in the 1930s (Morinaka 2020: 184).

Enid Eder Perkins, from Washington DC, who was translating Don Goyo, kept regular correspondence with Poore, sending out finished parts and doubts about passages she had cut out because they would not meet the US taste in her opinion:

As you will notice, I have eliminated a few passages which I thought too crude for American taste, but I do not think I have left out anything that contributes to the story, or have sacrificed any of the naive primitive atmosphere. A bit of research at the museum solved the problem of the names of a few fish that do not appear in my dictionaries, and a little inquiry and some imagination settled the matter of any other native terms I did not know.

Perkins 1941[28]

Poore was glad about the translation, “[h]ow admirably it reads and how well you have preserved its atmosphere. Your editing of the cruder passages is just right. This is the best work of yours I have seen, as good as the best parts of El Pozo and more sustained.”[29] The only thing she was to consider was the publisher’s suggestion for translated texts in general, which she had already done in Poore’s opinion:

In the dialogue I think we might keep to a perfectly simple and grammatical English as you have done in most cases, even to the point of keeping the final ‘g’ of going, doing, and other present participles. Where one translator wrote “I ain’t lied. What should I be lyin’ to yer for?” the publisher suggested instead a “slightly formal, uncolloquial rendering, thus: “I haven’t lied. Why should I lie to you?” This is close to your own method; so close that you need not bother to revise what you have written, in case you see any need for this kind of revision; I can easily make any such alterations as may be required.

Poore 1941[30]

Through this fragment, we can have a glimpse of this particular publishing house’s translation policies that preferred simple grammatical English rather than “uncolloquial rendering.” A thorough investigation of books translated into English in this period is needed to state if this was a common practice of other publishers as well.

Harriet de Onís, from New York City, who would become the main translator and consultant of Latin-American literature for the Alfred Knopf firm in the following decades (Rostagno 1997), also worked on the project. From the letters exchanged with Dudley Poore, we learn she had a vast repertoire of Latin-American authors. Poore even consulted her opinion on some stories which were chosen or others she might know that could be included in case the Department of State allowed their publication. For the anthology, she translated Diez-Canseco’s El Gaviota. In the letter she sent with the translation after finishing it, the following comments can be found:

I really enjoyed doing ‘Gaivota.’ It has been a challenge trying to keep its somewhat surrealistic style, without falling into the grotesque, and to find the equivalent for the many caustic metaphors. I too, think it has vigor, color, good psychology, and the odd mixture of tenderness and cruelty that characterizes the work of a number of the younger Chileans and Peruvians. I wish they wouldn’t so often use a child or adolescent as the object of their psychological dissection. It’s a bit painful.

De Onís 1941[31]

In a letter to Alis de Sola, Poore expressed concern that the translators had not been given credit for their work. He asked if she had seen Harriet de Onís’ translation of the novel El mundo es ancho y ajeno (1941) in Red Book [a magazine] “without the slightest mention of her name anywhere, though the person – I can use no other word – who conceived and executed the indescribably silly illustrations has his name in type only less large than the author’s.” [32], to which de Sola replied: “I sympathize with you about Red Book. All publishers should be consigned to the lowest icy regions of hell.” [33]

4.3. Katherine Porter’s preface

In addition to presenting short comments on stories in Fiesta in November, Katherine Porter’s[34] preface touches on themes such as (i) the translators’ hard work in dealing with “variations in Spanish idiom between the South American republics” and “Indian country dialects” given the diversity of stories collected for the anthology (Poore and Flores 1942: 1-2); (ii) the importance of the stories for “those countries which produced them,” including young writers and “those of Afro-Indian race with little or no Spanish blood, who live very close to the people they write about,” even if some stories sounded “fairly obscure” (Poore and Flores 1942: 2); and (iii) the diversity of contemporary voices, differing from the “aristocratic Spanish” (Poore and Flores 1942: 2).

There is no mention that the anthology was a project subsidised by the State Department and no indication of overtly political motivations. A curious fact is that, during World War I, a small-scale but similar diplomatic exchange between the US and Latin America took place and a different strategy was applied to present the anthology entitled Pan-American Poems in 1918 to the US public. To strengthen the ties with the American nations, a collection of poems from different countries was translated and edited by Agnes Blake Poor (1842-1922), whose preface overtly expressed the need for hemispheric understanding (detailed account in Morinaka 2019a):

The translator has to thank most warmly many South American friends for generous gifts of books and journals which it would have been difficult, perhaps impossible, to procure otherwise, and can only hope in return that her work may have an influence, however slight, in the present important crisis, of drawing closer the sympathies of two great divisions of the world, whose aims should now, if ever, be united.

Poor 1918: 9 – emphasis added

5. Reception of Fiesta in November

The OCIAA did some follow-up on Fiesta in November, probably because the staff received a letter from Dr. Luis Alberto Sánchez, [35] a literary critic, disapproving of the anthology. One of the negative comments was that the OCIAA should have entrusted the selection of authors to Latin Americans,[36] in response to which John P. Bishop explained that the process did start with Diómedes de Pereyra and his correspondents, “many of the most distinguished literary figures in Latin America.” Bishop agreed with Dr. Sánchez that only Latin Americans were “qualified to tell us what in their literature has value for them.” However, they had to narrow down the selection and opted for more contemporary work as “literature from another land is almost certainly more acceptable if it happens to be of our own time.” Furthermore,

In preparing both anthologies, I determined that the final selection from material assembled by Latin Americans should be made by a North American editor. Due to my long residence in France, I know there are always certain authors, highly esteemed in their own land, who simply are not exportable. They lose interest as soon as they cross the borders of their native country. Among French writers in this class I might cite Gide and Cocteau, who have never had anything but a limited and special audience here. On the other hand, there are a few writers who gain in stature when read in another country. An outstanding example among the French is Proust, who gained his reputation much more rapidly in England than in France. I wanted, of course, that our anthologies should be representative; but I also wanted them read. Therefore, it seemed to me essential that the final editing should be done by a North American for North Americans.

Bishop 1941[37]

Bishop provided testimony of his knowledge of French writers who were published both domestically and internationally. This is of interest to Translation Studies since it illustrates how authors or texts circulate in different literary systems and the values attributed to them according to domestic norms (Toury 2012). It highlights the role of editors who must be well-tuned to the public’s taste to bring what meets their interest and what could hold their attention.[38]

Sánchez’s second unfavourable comment was the lack of “violence and sensuality of South America,” to which Bishop responded, “These are matters of taste; my own taste happens to be for them. But for various reasons, it scarcely seemed advisable to overemphasize these qualities in an anthology.” The editors considered the fact that these anthologies would circulate widely in schools as they were devoting more time to South American literature. If sensuality or sexuality stood out, it could attract the moral vigilantes’ attention, who were highly alert to spotting and denouncing any book that went against their moral codes. (On censorship during WW2, cf. Tebbel 2003, v. 4).

Bishop writes that for the anthology of Latin-American poetry he thought about restricting sexuality, but not violence:

However, only in extreme cases have I myself advocated omitting anything on the grounds of sensuality. I did suggest to Fitts that he leave out one poem, which remained for one entire stanza inside the vagina. In no case has anything been cut because it was too violent. The poetry anthology gives full representation to the poets of social protest.

Bishop 1941[39]

To defend his view and the quality of the work, Bishop stated that “an anthology cannot hope to win everyone’s approval, as witness the Oxford Book of Modern Verse [1936], which though it was edited by the greatest of the living poets, William Butler Yeats, came in for its full share of criticism.”

In 1943, a favourable review of the Anthology of Contemporary Latin American Poetry, written by the Brazilian poet Manoel Bandeira, was published in A Manhã, a newspaper in Rio de Janeiro. Dudley Poore’s plea was “whatever toil and anxiety those two books [Fiesta in November and Anthology of Contemporary Latin American Poetry] may have involved in the making need cause no regret provided they are thought to be well done in some respects.”[40] Compliments and kind words from Manoel Bandeira might have brought to mind the harsh criticism by Sánchez, noticeable in Poore’s comment “where Bandeira is under the necessity of point out flaws, he does so with the most complete good nature, in a tone of voice which – far from causing any pain – makes one grateful to him for taking the trouble to suggest where the translations could be bettered (emphasis added).”

Working for the Good Neighbor’s cause, William Schurz, from the Division of Cultural Relations used Bandeira’s positive review as a bargaining chip to request that Poore write a review of As obras primas do conto brasileiro (1943), organised by Almiro Rolmes Barbosa and Edgard Cavalheiro.[41] After reviewing it, Poore responded:

I hope the gentleman in São Paulo will feel their anthology has received serious and generous attention. The friendly treatment I have myself received at the hands of certain Brazilian critics – notably Manuel Bandeira, writing in A manhã – has made me all the more glad to return the compliment.

Poore 1944; emphasis added[42]

Poore recognised he was honest about his judgment on the anthology, but in the letter, he confided to Schurz:

I enjoyed this little task and am grateful to you for suggesting it. Though I thought the stories – judged by the highest standard – rather disappointing, I did not think it necessary to say so. Where I had reservations, I was at some pains to imply them, rather than to state them directly, and to preserve at all times, needless to say, a tone of sympathy and respect. This was not at all hard to do, for I found throughout the stories themselves a very engaging note of benevolence and humanity.

Poore 1944; emphasis added[43]

It seems that Dudley Poore was still pondering Sánchez’s negative review of Fiesta in November and was personally aware of the damages harsh words could cause a writer, an editor or a translator working under pressure. He did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings. As a serious professional, Poore knew better the time spent and the effort devoted to such types of tasks. He surely recognised Almiro Rolmes Barbosa and Edgard Cavalheiro’s work and kindly expressed it, a recognition he had not received when Fiesta in November was published.

6. Final remarks

This literary project proposed by the US State Department via the OCIAA involved many Latin American and North American writers, translators and editors in the cause of hemispheric solidarity. Despite not imposing restrictions on themes, authors or texts, the Department of State closely monitored each publishing stage through meetings with the publishers and the OCIAA’s publishing directors, according to information that could be traced in the exchange of letters and in the reports found at NARA II. If publishers or editors had made a bad decision, for example, choosing a text written by an author allegedly connected with Nazi-Fascist ideology, these choices could have been easily rejected by the Joint Committee and the Department of Stance since the US was fighting the Axis power, and, in practical terms, they would have had no time left to substitute for the rejected/censored materials. As they were fully aware of the purpose of such projects and time constrictions, they could not afford to have materials rejected. In this sense, the strategy or practice of self-censorship prevented confrontations and shows a concern for the patron. Although not overtly expressed in the correspondence, Dudley Poore and the translators had to compromise their preferences to accomplish a task they were being paid for, many relying on translation wages to supplement their income in those difficult times.

By ‘listening’ to the editor and the translators we can see that they did exactly what was required. Enid Perkins changed portions of her text to comply with the publishers’ policies, following Dudley Poore’s recommendation, who was the intermediate between the translators and HM’s chief editor. This example opens a window to look into a specific publisher’s preference for the type of language used in translated texts in the first half of the twentieth century, although diverse oral registers were being widely used by North American writers. It seems that Houghton Mifflin tended to be more conservative although it should be noted that comparisons of various source and target texts would provide more substantial evidence to reach a conclusion. Dudley Poore, in turn, excluded a short story from the anthology, which led me to think he was aware of the political and ideological context and that it would not be appropriate to publish a writer allegedly connected with the Nazis.

Since it was a project subsidised by the state, these editors, translators and publisher’s practices were directly moulded according to what was required by the state in times of war. From a macro perspective, the policy of selecting the material had to follow the patron’s objectives – to make Latin American culture known to the US public. At a micro level, the editor and translators had ‘limited’ freedom and it seems it was not an appropriate time for ‘transgressive’ practices.