Fostering fiction, forging literature: invented authorship and publishing agency in the Grandes Mistérios, Grandes Aventuras Collection

Abstract

This article dwells on the case study of José Rosado, a fake translator of his own books to Portuguese (never written in any other language), and his interaction between 1942 and 1957 with Romano Torres, a twentieth century Portuguese publishing house, within the crime fiction collection Grandes Mistérios, Grandes Aventuras [Great Mysteries, Great Adventures]. Exploring José Rosado’s relationship with his publisher, centered on the process of authorial invention of fake foreign books, draws attention to the manifold processes involved in the creation of the translated texts—or the idea of translated text—as literary agency. It also illustrates the tensions within the heterogeneous framework of print production, circulation and appropriation of the translated text.