In 1905, the writer, publicist and cultural figure Ana de Castro Osório sent a copy of her book Às Mulheres Portuguesas (considered to be the first Portuguese Feminist Manifest) to a friend and colleague in Sweden with this dedication: “provando-lhe a minha admiração e eterna estima e denunciando ao seu espírito os grandes males do meu país”. The friend was Göran Björkman, a highly prominent figure within the Swedish cultural establishment; special advisor on the Romance languages to the Nobel Committee on literature; and a main translator of these languages into Swedish. The correspondence that took place between them (from 1900-1920) reveals a dialogue exchanging ideas on Portuguese literature and culture. This is one example of how a women writer from the early 20th century functioned as a transnational literary mediator promoting Portuguese culture across national borders.
Recent literary studies aspiring to revitalize the research areas of literary history and criticism have made a so-called “transcultural turn”: an attempt to move away from the narrow scope of conceptualizing literature and authors within a national framework, and to view literary production more like a global and transcultural network of cultural exchange. One way of broadening the scope of literary history and production is to investigate and recognize the importance of cultural and literary mediators in the process of how literature has travelled across borders.
Portuguese women writers of the early 20th century, due to gender politics, encountered obstacles to being recognized in the national canon formation, and this also affected the possibility of their literature being translated into other languages. This paper will revisit the archives to consider the role of these writers as important cultural and literary mediators, with examples from the cultural exchange between Portugal and Sweden. The aim of the paper is twofold: to provide examples of how these women writers - as literary and cultural mediators - contributed to the shaping of Portuguese culture; and also to contribute to a theoretical discussion that, through the lens of gender, broadens the perspective and scope of literary history production in order to achieve inclusiveness.