When I read Descobri que era Europeia: Impressões duma viagem à América ­- Natália Correia’s trip to America in 1950 – it was with the knowledge that I would be collaborating with Katharine F. Baker on our English translation of Correia’s engaging account of her experience of discovering North America and the people she met, both famous and ordinary.  Natália, one of Portugal’s most significant writers of the twentieth century, gives us a vivid account of life set in a very specific time and place with astute observations and commentary, in a mix of diary and journalistic styles that is a thoroughly enjoyable read. She takes us along on her discovery of the world she encounters, which in turn leads her to reflect on her own identity through the encounter she had with the identity of the “other.”

There is something immediate and modern about her writing that is very much of our time, too. I suspect that if Natália Correia were writing today, her travel account to the United States would have been documented through her Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages.

In America, I Discovered I Was European reads like a delightful series of social documentary and travel snippets posted on various social media platforms. If the technology existed back in the 1950s, we would have followed Correia’s journey of observation, gossip and impressions of an America we can experience through her vivid writing. Katharine and I tried to be as faithful as possible to the original Portuguese text, but also conscious of certain terms, expressions and attitudes which reveal Natália as a person of her time, that might be challenging for a reader of today to accept beyond a social-historical context. With a translator’s skill, Baker acknowledges current sensibilities especially around racism and gender in rendering Correia’s travelogue to a modern reader.

It was a pleasure to work on this translation with Katharine F. Baker, and I thank her profoundly for trusting me to collaborate with her on this journey of bringing Natalia’s In America, I Discovered I Was European to English readers.

Also posted in Filamentos (artes e letras)

Available in June 2025 through the Tagus Press arm of the University of Massachusetts Press. You can also obtain the book through Indigo and  Amazon.