ABSTRACT
The gendering of texts and the practices that generate them is precisely the focus of this chapter, which proposes readings of two quite different, albeit compatible pieces: the Brazilian Moacyr Scliar's short story "Notas ao pe da pagina" and the Italian Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, a novel originally published in 1979. In Calvino's novel, as in Scliar's story, the author finds a clear association between text and woman as inspiring Muse and object of desire. Calvino's storyline also seems to suggest that since the translator is not formally bound to his writing, he is free to lead an adventurous life without actually committing to any single project, anyone or any particular place or tradition. Just as authorship is intimately linked to the pursuit of a desirable female in Calvino's novel, so is the process of translation, which is, thus, acknowledged as a form of writing that also involves agency and desire.
