Ana Helena Souza

Profile | Translation excerpts | Bibliography

Ana Helena Barbosa Bezerra de Souza was born on the 7th May 1966 in Recife, Pernambuco. She translates from both English and French, and first began learning English in her early teens at school and in private classes. She spent six months studying in Illinois in the USA when she was 17. She graduated in Language Studies from UFPE where she majored in English and Portuguese. At university she took French classes and then continued her French studies with private teachers in São Paulo.

She completed her masters in 1993 and her doctorate in 2001,both in the field of literary theory and comparative literature at USP. She has taught English language in various language schools since 1983. From March 2002 to March 2003, she was professor at the literary theory department at UFMG on a CNPq postdoctoral student grant. She currently teaches English at the MAI and Cultura Inglesa language schools in Belo Horizonte-MG.

She began freelance translating in São Paulo in 1994, when she took on small jobs for the schools for which she taught. Between 1998 and 2000 she worked on the translation of Samuel Beckett’s How It Is, from English to Portuguese as part of her doctoral project. She consulted the French original throughout her own translation, although her source text was Beckett’s own translation into English of the text. This was published under the title Como é in 2003 by the São Paulo publishing house Iluminuras.

In 2006 Editora 7 Letras published the text that accompanied this translation and which consisted of a study of the novel and comments on the translation, together with a study on self-translation and bilingualism in Samuel Beckett’s works. She has also previously translated technical texts, manuals and sites for automation companies (SPI - São Paulo), as well as articles for academic journals in the fields of philosophy, history and literary theory.

While she does not follow any one theory, she does consider what several authors have written about translation practice, in particular Walter Benjamim, Erza Pound, Haroldo de Campos and Beckett himself, who translated his own work. In her opinion a good translator should have an excellent grasp of the source and target languages, and should be familiar with the author to be translated, as well as having enough time to translate and check the translations.

Ana Helena Souza is currently translating Beckett’s Molloy from the French original for the publishing house Globo, and she intends to translate other important authors, and also to soon begin translating from German to Portuguese.

Entry published on May 8 2007 by:
Dina Omar
Marie-Hélène Catherine Torres

Translated by

Bibliography

Published translations

Beckett, Samuel. Como é. [Trans: Ana Helena Souza]. São Paulo: Iluminuras, 2003. 192 p. (Comment c´est/How It Is). Novel.

Orwell, George. Lutando na Espanha. [Trans: Ana Helena Souza]. Globo.400 p. (Homage to Catalonia). Autobiographical account.

Published works

Souza, Ana Helena. A Tradução Como um Outro Origina . São Paulo: 7 (sete) Letras. 173 p. Essay.