“We wanted to be the first to launch some editions. Last year we released in Hindi, the fifth most spoken language worldwide, which had no translation,” highlighted the communication director of Valor do Tempo, the group that acquired the café in Lisbon and initiated translations of Fernando Pessoa’s work in 2020.
According to Sónia Santiago, the group aimed to “bring ‘Mensagem’ into more editions,” choosing Tetum after discovering with Fernando Pessoa expert, Ricardo Belo de Moraes, that no works had been translated into this official language of Timor-Leste. The edition also includes an introduction about Fernando Pessoa’s relationship with A Brasileira do Chiado.
With the temporary closure of the café due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the group had more “time to think” about how to “present A Brasileira to the world,” deciding to “start making translations of ‘Mensagem’,” as they “receive customers from so many places,” who deliberately visit to “take photos with the [Fernando Pessoa] statue on the terrace,” she added.
In 2021, the group released the work in Portuguese and bilingual editions in English, French, Spanish, Mandarin, and later, in German and Italian.
In 2024, the group began preparing translations of the book into other languages, focusing on unprecedented editions, notably for Hindi, released in October that year.
The launch of the work in Tetum “holds particular significance as it occurs in the month when A Brasileira do Chiado celebrates its 120th anniversary on November 19, and when Timor-Leste marks, on the 28th of the same month, the 50th anniversary of its first declaration of independence,” according to a statement.
The translation of ‘Mensagem’, an edition of A Brasileira do Chiado, is by Paulo Henriques, a trainer, translator, and guest professor of the Master’s in Portuguese Teaching in the Context of Timor-Leste at the National University of Timor-Leste.
The group will announce on Friday the launch of ‘Mensagem’ editions in Romanian, Arabic, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian, also an unprecedented translation. The release occurs Friday at 11:00 at the Camões Institute in Lisbon, in a public session.
The event will be attended by the Timor-Leste ambassador in Lisbon, Isabel Amaral Guterres, the president of the Camões Institute, Florbela Paraíba, the president of the Oriente Foundation, Carlos Monjardino, with the translator, Paulo Henriques, participating via video call from the Timorese capital, Dili.
