Texto completo (em português): https://wordpress.com/post/bookcenterbrazil.wordpress.com/4043
On other occasions, it has been said by the Brazilian National Library Foundation Nacional that Clarice Lispector is the Brazilian author whose literary works received the most financial support from the Support Program for the Translation and Publication of Brazilian Authors Abroad (https://bookcenterbrazil.wordpress.com/2017/12/08/a-volta-ao-mundo-em-20-capas-de-clarice/). In fact, between 1991 and 2020, the author’s literary legacy was contemplated 60 times in translation projects by FBN for languages ranging from English, Spanish, French and German, passing through Polish, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Estonian, Turkish, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian, Swedish, Danish, Croatian, and others. Among the publishers, the North American New Directions was the one that most published Clarice with the support of the Translation Program, totaling 11 titles (https://www.ndbooks.com/author/clarice-lispector/). However, what is little publicized and known by the general public is that Clarice Lispector was also an excellent and prolific translator.
At the age of 17, Clarice Lispector imagines a way to cover her expenses. She decides to teach mathematics and Portuguese, learns to type and starts to attend Cultura Inglesa. She already knew French, well she knew Hebrew and Yiddish, reminds a bit of Russian, became fluent in English and made the typewriter an inseparable companion for her entire life. At the age of 19, Clarice was already translating scientific texts written in English. In 1940, at the age of 20, in her second year at the National Law Faculty of the former University of Brazil, she seeks out Lourival Fontes (1899-1967), director of the DIP, the “Department of Press and Propaganda” of Getúlio Vargas, to see if she can get a job as a translator. There was no vacancy and Clarice became a reporter and editor for the National Agency, then linked to the DIP. Being a Jack of all trades in the newsroom, she translates letters and documents. In May 1940, writing to Elisa, her sister, she celebrates: “On Monday I received 28$200 in the editorial office concerning old translations”. Old translations, that is, they took a long time to pay… Always attentive, however, to opportunities, at the beginning of the following year she publishes, in the magazine Vamos Lêr! (1936-1948), his first literary translation, made from French, a short story by Claude Farrère (1876-1957), “O Missionário”, [The Missionary], in fact a great allegory of the translator’s job. The name comes out wrong in the magazine – “Clarisse” – and perhaps it hinted to her, who saw signs and omens in almost everything, that Clarice-Translator’s path would be somewhat winding: in fact it was. From 1941 to 1977, the year of her death, she translated 46 titles from English, French and Spanish, most from 1967. At both uttermost points of this winding path, departure and arrival, youth and maturity, there is something in common: she translates for a living.
At the age of 23, Clarice marries Maury Gurgel Valente (1921-1994), already at Itamaraty and a future diplomat. She travels a lot, therefore, and publishes her books; she no longer has to worry about financial instabilities. In 1943, she released her first book, Perto do Coração Selvagem, which earned theGraça Aranha Prize, well received by critics as best novel of that year.Two years later, the very first translation of one of her texts appears, translated to Italian, the chapter “A tia” from her debut novel; “La zia” appeared in the magazine Prosa, maintained in Rome by the “Solarians”; the translation was under the care of the untimely Ungaretti (1888-1970) who had just arrived from Brazil (1942). Not long after, in 1952, Beata Vettori (1909-1994), a Brazilian diplomat engaged in feminist agendas, translated the chapter “Os primeiros desertores” from A cidade sitiada that Clarice had released in 1949. At the time, Beata Vettori was in Rio, coming from a 3-year diplomatic mission in London, and working in the secretariat of the Rio Branco Institute. The chapter appeared with the title “Persée dans le train” [Perseus on the train] in the literary magazine Roman, by the Parisian publisher Plon, directed by the feminist author and translator Célia Bertin (1920-2014) in partnership with Pierre Lescure (1891-1963).
Vettori’s excellent translation raised the interest of publishing, in French, Perto do coração selvagem (1943). However, they were lacking someone to do the translation. Lescure and Bertin found in Denise-Teresa Moutonnier, an elegant polyglot Parisian who had come to Brazil in 1953 as secretary to the architect Gaston Bardet (1907-1989), the first translator of an integral work by Clarice Lispector. Considering the very tight deadline, Moutonnier translated the 250 pages of Perto do coração selvagem in a few weeks, perhaps less than a month, but Clarice didn’t like Près du coeur sauvage... She thought the translation was “extremely bad”. But this is another story. After a second glance, the author regretted this judgment and, very politely, apologized twice to the editor Pierre Lescure. Moutonnier must be considered Lispector’s “first translator” because she was the first to translate a complete work by the author. Perto do coração selvagem iscurrently circulating in 18 languages.
In 1963, now 43 years old, separated from her husband for 4 years, Clarice Lispector needed to reinvent herself financially. Translate…? Why not? And Matriz de Bravos, The winthrop Woman, by Anya Selton (1904-1990), is published by the publisher Ypiranga. In the coming years, until the end of her life, she will translate novels, short stories, children’s literature and plays (few and almost all unpublished). In 1967, in the midst of this somewhat forced restart – she spent almost 20 years without translating – and as if announcing the difficulties that would mark the last 10 years of her life, the author had a serious accident in a fire. She almost lost her right hand. Accident, perhaps trauma and certainly fear as they emerge in the chronicle Traduzir procurando não trair, published the following year in Revista Joia : “I do translate, but I am afraid of reading translations of my books. Also having a lot of nauseafrom rereading my books, I am afraid of what the translator might have done with my text”.
In the 1970s, new financial trouble demanded more and more translations. In 1974, she translated 4 books; in 1975, 8; in 1976, 4. Dismissed in 1974 from O Jornal do Brasil, she comments on her translations: “It’s my livelihood. I respect the authors I translate, of course, but I try to connect myself more with the sense than with the words. These are mine, they’re the ones I choose. I don’t like being pushed, dragged to a corner, demanding things from me. That’s why I felt a great relief when I was fired from a newspaper recently. Now I only write when I want to”. In another interview, Clarice says that she lives with “a small income I have, modest; besides, I translate”. And she translates everything: Agatha Christie, Poe, Jules Verne, Jonathan Swift, Jack London, Wilde, Walter Scott, Henry Fielding and many others. There are even those who see a certain symbiosis between the translated texts and the authorial works published between 1974 and 76. Thus, Hora da Estrela would have something of A Rendeira, La Dentellière, by Pascal Lainé, translated in 1975 by Clarice. Be that as it may, among the documents held by Fundação Casa de Rui Barbosa there is a “Registration certificate for self-employed professionals”, issued on February 6, 1975: Clarice Gurgel Valente “Book Writer and Translator”.
After the very first Près du coeur sauvage, by Denise-Teresa Moutonnier, many other first translations came. In 1955, the first for Spanish; in 1961, the first for English; in 1963, the first for German; in 1973, the first for the Czech. Today, Clarice has around 180 full translations in more than 32 languages and 40 countries. Since the beginning of the Translation Program, the National Library has supported the international dissemination of her works which have already been published in Swedish, Spanish, English, Hungarian, Slovak, Greek, Ukrainian, Albanian, German, Italian, Czech, Danish and Croatian. Lately, Clarice Lispector’s work has received a more judicious treatment from foreign publishers, who aim at meticulous translations with quality graphic design, giving new impetus to the reception of these works abroad. Thus, for example, although the North American publishing market is very closed to foreign literature, Clarice Lispector’s short stories – The Complete Stories – translated by Katrina Dodson with the support of the Support Program for Translation and Publication of Brazilian Authors Abroad, by FBN, released by New Directions, was chosen by the New York Times as one of the 100 best books of 2015 (the work was also translated into German by Penguin Random House with support from the FBN Translation Program): https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/02/books/review/the-complete-stories-by-clarice-lispector.html
The list of eligible projects is already available and can be checked 
centrointernacionaldolivro.wordpress.com 