SELVAGEM TRANSLATIONS AT THE FRENCH EMBASSY IN BRAZIL'S AWARDS
2 September 2026
‘Diplomacy begins the moment we get to know and understand the others’ language'said Leo Werá, a translator for the Guarani language working group, participant of the Guarani Living School, during the panel discussion “Selvagem Translations: Orality, worlds in touch and the experience of a network of translations”, which focused on the experiences of the Selvagem Translations Group.
The event was part of the programme for the 5th edition of the French Embassy Translation Prize, organised in partnership with Goethe-Institut, last Friday, 28 August, at the National Library Foundation in Rio de Janeiro. The Selvagem panel brought together Alice Faria, coordinator of the Selvagem Translation Group, and members Leo Werá, a translator into Guarani, and Antoine de Mena, a translator from French, for a discussion on translation as an exercise in listening, choosing, and moving between worlds.
Watch the full recording of the panel discussion ‘Selvagem Translations: Orality, worlds in contact and the experience of a network of translations’.
The Selvagem Translations Group is a collaborative network that emerged from a desire to broaden the circulation of discussions and materials produced by Selvagem since its very first meetings in 2018 and 2019. Today, 140 translators work together as an integrated team, and 249 translations have been published on the website. Most of these are translations of Selvagem Notebooks, in addition to over 150 subtitles for Selvagem’s audiovisual archive; these materials shared at no charge bring together the words and reflections of Indigenous and non-Indigenous thinkers, artists and researchers. Selvagem’s materials span 14 languages, six of which are Indigenous languages. The Translations Group is part of a constellation of people linked to the Selvagem Cycles of Studies, the Selvagem Ways of Knowing Lab – LAS and the Living Schools indigenous movement. Like them, the group focuses on orality – a perspective that drove Selvagem’s participation in the Translation Prize.
The event opened with a speech by Marco Lucchesi, president of the National Library Foundation, who highlighted the importance of translations in building a culture of peace that is committed to embracing otherness. Speeches by Caroline Vabret, from the French Consulate in Rio de Janeiro, Almerinda Stenzel, director of the Goethe-Institut Library in Rio, and Madeleine Deschamps, producer at Selvagem Association, also took place.
‘While it was a new experience for me, it also became an opportunity to spark dialogue between worlds’.
Leo Werá, translator from the Guarani section
The Selvagem roundtable began with a presentation of the Translations Group by its coordinator, Alice Faria, who explained how this network is made up of people involved in the history of the Selvagem Association and in the discussions from which the published materials spring. Through a shared process, translations are carried out collectively and understood as political acts that seek to respect the linguistic characteristics unique to each individual; the publication of videos alongside the Selvagem notebooks is part of this effort to show respect and remain faithful to oral tradition.
Presentation of the Translations Group by its coordinator, Alice Faria.
After that, the panel featured a talk by Leo Werá, from the Guarani language working group, who presented translation as a way of listening to his own language once again. Leo is a student and member of the Guarani Living School, currently studying for a Bachelor’s degree in Intercultural Education at UNIFESP – a course focused on strengthening Indigenous languages. Leo Werá has translated the book "Tekoypy rã – A origem de nós" (Tekoypy rã – Our origin, Dantes Publishing, 2026), by Carlos Papá, into Guarani. Carlos Papá is the coordinator of the Guarani Living School. Leo described this process as an opportunity for ‘fieldwork with the elders, who are the scholars, the keepers of the language’, framing the translation process as a moment of encounter and collective reflection that raised new questions and led to new learning within the Guarani Living School community.
Leo Werá, a translator from the Guarani language working group, during his talk at the Selvagem panel.
In his perspective, the challenges posed by the search for confluences – rather than equivalences – between vocabularies and forms of knowledge transmission are capable of broadening the circulation of Indigenous languages not only outside their territories, but also within the very communities. In the face of colonisation and all the violence that caused many Indigenous languages to fall dormant, he presented translation as a means for Indigenous peoples to transcend the boundaries of silencing and create their own mechanisms to keep their languages alive and organic, because ‘Indigenous languages are joyful, circular, and have no end’. The very title of the book ‘Tekoypy rã’ suggests that, conveying the Guarani idea of an unfinished future, undergoing constant construction and transformation.
Leo Werá’s words echoed throughout the whole event and were quoted at various moments as a point of reference for considering how translation operates, in different ways, as a bridge between cultures and as a means of strengthening relationships.
The dynamics of translation centred on orality were also highlighted by Antoine de Mena, a translator into French from the Selvagem Translations Group, who emphasised the importance of paying attention to what is omitted from the text, such as pauses, unfinished sentences, rhythms and other markings of speech. The work with the videos link with the Selvagem Notebooks when considering these aspects, as a way of following thoughts as they unfold in the body and preserving elements of speech that might otherwise be lost in the transition from spoken to written word.
Leo Werá, Alice Faria, Antoine de Mena and Marilou Benzoni at the end of the ‘Selvagem’ panel.
Translation as a gesture and an imprint on the body was also a theme in the following panel, ‘Resonances: Translation and Performance – Commentary on Readings’, featuring Yure Romão, actor and director of the Gondwana theatre company, Larissa Gonçalves de Miranda, Bruna Lima and Ana Luz. All members of the UFRJ Laboratory of Contemporary French-Language Poetics (LAPOFRAN), they discussed the experience of translating the play “Resonances” from French into Portuguese and the nuances brought about by the traces of orality.
‘Resonances: Translation and Performance – Commentary on Readings’ panel.
The final panel was a discussion among Flavia Lago, Marcelo Jacques de Moraes and Laura Campos, members of the jury for the French Embassy’s Translation Prize, moderated by Marilou Benzoni. At the end, the Translation Prize was awarded to Fernanda Murad Machado, acknowledged for her translation of Njeddo Dewal, Mother of Calamity, by Amadou Hampâté Bâ, published by Hedra Publishing. The book presents a traditional narrative of the Fula people, who live in various countries across West Africa, passed down orally from generation to generation, and published in this edition following Hampâté Bâ’s meticulous process of listening and translation. The award for this work also served as a recognition of oral tradition and traditional forms of knowledge transmission, echoing the words of Léo Wera and Selvagem’s work with knowledge and narratives rooted in oral tradition.
Handing over the Translation Award to Fernanda Murad Machado.
Over the course of a morning of reflection on translation as an ethical practice, the programme for the French Embassy’s Translation Prize fostered an important gathering that recognised the role of orality alongside a form of writing that listens to the vibrancy of languages.
The invitation for Selvagem Association to take part in the event is part of a long-standing partnership with the French Embassy and the Goethe-Institut, which have collaborated on various initiatives, such as the Living School House artistic residency and the "Birds Eye View’’ project, aimed at combating misinformation about forests and their populations.
Thank you for your partnership!
Photos: French Embassy in Brazil