Die Verleger de Bry als Übersetzer von Übersetzungen

The India Occidentalis collection of reports on America from the de Bry workshop is not only known as a major artistic publishing project, but also represents a tremendous achievement with regard to both linguistic and cultural translation. As publishers and contractees of translation processes, the de Brys occupied a position analogous to that of the texts’ authors and their positions of power vis-à-vis the public. More specifically, this is true to the extent that they operated within discourses of linguistic power and propaganda, conquest and colonization in which they had the authority to decide what would be presented to their readership – and in what language. Among other aspects, the discussion revolves around translation as a marker of distance in the accounts of Brazil by Hans Staden and Jean de Léry as well as around the discursive parallels between the indigenous population of the Americas and the Protestant population of the Netherlands vis-à-vis the Spanish conquerors.