This doctoral dissertation analyzes the translation process of Conceição Evaristo’s Ponciá Vicêncio (2003) into English. This novel, written by an Afro-Brazilian writer, was translated by Paloma Martinez-Cruz and published in the United States in 2007, by Host Publications. Considering that translation is not merely an interlingual process, but it also involves many cultural issues, in addition to the fact that the systemic place occupied by a certain work in its source culture is not necessarily repeated in the target culture due to political, social and cultural differences, this research seeks to understand the systemic places occupied by Evaristo and her work both in the Brazilian and American cultural polysystems. This study takes into account aspects such as the motivation to perform the translation of this work, the expected audience, some translation strategies, the distribution and the critical reception of Ponciá Vicêncio in the source and target cultures, as well as the systemic places occupied by the writer and her work in the cultural polysystems of origin and reception. This analysis clarifies some questions such as to what extent this insertion can change the image of Brazilian literature/culture in the North-American polysystem, and the possible impact that Evaristo’s image in the US may have on the position she occupies in the Brazilian literary polysystem – or even in the recent establishment of an Afro-Brazilian literary system. The study of the process of insertion of Conceição Evaristo in the American literary polysystem via translation was informed by the polysystem theory, as proposed by Itamar Even-Zohar, the Descriptive Translation Studies – DTS, especially the ideas of Gideon Toury and André Lefevere, the Cultural Studies, which have led to the articulation of translation studies, gender studies and post-colonial studies, and some ideas by Lawrence Venuti on the generation and manipulation of cultural images. The methodological model proposed by Lambert and Van Gorp also served as an instrument to this research, considering that we analyze aspects such as language,the two systemic contexts involved, some critical texts and the actions of patronage .