Translatorial self-censorship under the Portuguese Estado Novo: Sérgio Guimarães' 1959 translation of "Cat on a hot tin roof"

Resumo

Taking as a starting point Chesterman’s (2009) proposal for an interdiscipline of
Translator Studies within a sociological scope, this article discusses the concept of translatorial selfcensorship in light of the 20th-century Portuguese dictatorship. The play Gata em telhado de zinco quente, a translation of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a hot tin roof, commissioned to Sérgio Guimarães in 1959 by impresario Vasco Morgado, provides sufficient archival material for a debate on the multiple layers of censorship in the target (con)text, with implications for translator agency.