Machado de Assis’ Oliveira Twist: translation and the making of a novelist

In April of 1870, Machado de Assis was invited to translate Charles Dickens’ first novel into Portuguese. The important task of introducing the celebrated Oliver Twist and his creator to a Brazilian audience was conferred upon Machado solely on his merits as a rising intellectual voice in Brazilian letters. Machado’s idiosyncrasies as a translator range from a cavalier treatment of details, to what seem to be ideologically motivated narrative omissions. His procedures in these early years as a translator of Dickens are instrumental in the formation of his political and social consciousness as a mature novelist. I propose to trace in these early years not only the genesis of an elusive literary social political that would permeate his later novels and cause him much critique by his peers, but also to demonstrate the undeniable influence that such a close relationship with the British Victorian would have on the Brazilian Romantic