“A vast surprise”: Prefaces to Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald's novel

Abstract

This article is informed by sociological approaches to translation in order to discuss the prefaces and introductions in both English and Portuguese of Save me the Waltz, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald's only novel, written and published in 1932. We first analyze the author's identity such as it was built in her original literary system - an identity that is mostly negative, cemented in Harry T. Moore's preface to the 1968 English edition. Then, we discuss the preface to the Brazilian translation published in the 1980s, considering the historical context surrounding the book's production. Our aim is to determine to what extent the Brazilian preface, written by Caio Fernando Abreu, differs from Moore's interpretation and the North-American criticism the novel received upon publication in the 1930s.