Opening this dossier on Latin American translation in Spain, Alejandrina Falcón surveys the historical context of mostly Argentine exiles with translation careers in Spain, their bonds of solidarity, and their editorial networks. This and other subjects are discussed in her book Traductores del exilio: Argentinos en editoriales españolas: traducciones, escrituras por encargo y conflicto lingüístico (1974-1983), published in 2018 by Iberoamericana/Vervuert (Madrid & Frankfurt), and currently in the process of being republished as part of the “Sentidos del Libro” collection of the Tren en Movimiento publishing house.
When the world entered the final phase of the Cold War in the mid-1970s, Latin America endured the rise of neoliberal policies anchored in the implementation of the National Security Doctrine. One of the repressive practices employed by the Southern Cone dictatorships to eliminate all forms of dissent was political exile, a mechanism for the forced exclusion of citizens. Due to linguistic and cultural proximity, Spain was one of the preferred European destinations for exiled individuals. As such, in the final years of the Franco regime, Madrid and Barcelona became host cities to Latin American political migrants and were a site of professional development for exiled intellectuals, writers, and journalists, some of whom were attracted by the cities’ existing publishing industries. The presence of Latin American exiles and émigrés coincided with a period of political and cultural upheaval, remembered as a time of high collective hopes. Barcelona was reclaiming its international relevance in the Ibero-American publishing industry, and significant transformations were beginning to take place in the publishing sector.
In the book world, giving or receiving work was often seen as a gesture of solidarity, or even as the frank repayment of a debt owed to Latin America for taking in exiled Republicans. The networks of labor solidarity between Spanish publishers and Argentine exiles also benefited from the pivotal actions of émigré Latin American writers who belonged to an earlier generation, and who, strictly speaking, were neither displaced for political reasons nor persecuted by the Southern Cone dictatorships, such as the writers of the Boom generation living in Barcelona. This solidarity, mobilized by networks of literary émigrés and political exiles, was certainly effective, particularly when new arrivals had the basic training required for the publishing tasks available to them: a command of foreign languages—English, French, Italian, and German—allowed them to work as translators; previous experience in journalism and publishing opened doors to other aspects of publishing work. With or without previous experience, Latin American exiles wrote dictionary entries, encyclopedia articles, and serials, and even books of technical or investigative journalism. Some were collection editors, editorial advisors, manuscript readers, illustrators, and cover designers. A significant number of exiles participated in the work surrounding book translations, from supervising collections and editing manuscripts to proofreading and linguistic adaptation, also called “desargentinización” [de-Argentinization] or “galleguización” [Spanification]. Other avenues for work included writing popular novels, typically under a foreign pseudonym, and adapting classics for children’s literature editions.
The names of Latin American translators show up time and again at the publishing houses founded during the latter years of the Franco regime, between 1968 and 1975, such as Lumen, Tusquets Editores, Anagrama, and Edicions 62.
At the end of the twentieth century, the prominent literary publishing houses in Spain boasted catalogs filled with Latin American translations, and more than a few had hired exiled workers, as revealed by translator payrolls. A brief overview corroborates this: between 1974 and 1983, imprints located in Barcelona published countless translations by Latin American émigrés, mostly from Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. The names of Latin American translators show up time and again at the publishing houses founded during the latter years of the Franco regime, between 1968 and 1975, such as Lumen, Tusquets Editores, Anagrama, and Edicions 62. With a largely modernizing editorial approach and a focus on selecting high-quality works and revamping the themes, styles, and genres of both the local and imported literature present in catalogs, these publishing ventures were considered politically progressive and culturally avant-garde. This meant that political and cultural ties could be established with Argentine intellectuals, writers, and journalists. The imprint Anagrama published translations by Ricardo Pochtar (renowned for his translation of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, published by Lumen), Mario Merlino, Roberto Bein, Cristina Peri Rossi, and Marcelo Cohen. In fact, Cohen was the first to translate the Catalan writer Quim Monzó into Spanish, and Anagrama was the first publisher of a Monzó translation in 1981. Argentines Marcelo Covián and Federico Gorbea, the writers and romantic partners Susana Constante and Alberto Cousté (who co-translated Apollinaire’s Zone), and Marcelo Cohen all translated for Tusquets Editores, as did the Uruguayans Homero Alsina Thevenet and Carlos M. Rama, with Rama leading the editing and translation of Guerra de clases en España, 1936-1939 by Camillo Berneri for the Los Libertarios series. At Lumen, Esther Tusquets’ publishing house, translations were done by the Uruguayans Cristina Peri Rossi, Homero Alsina Thevenet, and Beatriz Podestá Galimberti, and by Argentines, including the poet Mario Trejo, the screenwriter Carlos Sampayo, and Ricardo Pochtar. Additionally, in the mid-eighties, Ana María Becciú translated Djuna Barnes’ Ladies Almanack from Paris. Marcelo Cohen worked as a collection editor at Montesinos Editores, where the Argentine and Uruguayan Álvaro Abós, Cristina Peri Rossi, and Homero Alsina Thevenet translated, as did the Chilean writer Mauricio Wacquez.
Moreover, the work of Latin American exiles and émigrés was felt across the entirety of the publishing industry at the time. Agents connected to the Argentine publishing houses Sudamericana and Minotauro via Edhasa’s publications in Spain contributed not only to the presence of Argentine translators in Spanish companies, but also to the reprinting and circulation of translations done in Argentina. Minotauro has a unique story in this regard: not only did its editor and primary translator, Francisco Porrúa, migrate, bringing with him his pseudonyms Luis Domènech, Ricardo Gosseyn, and Francisco Abelenda, but the imprint’s primary translators—Carlos Peralta, Matilde Horne, and Marcial Souto—did as well, both before, during, and even after the period of exile. The Minotauro publishing project left its mark on the memory of Argentine emigration in Barcelona, and its prestigious director is often cited as an example of a great editor. Their work on translations, in particular, is held up as a model of care and respect for a text.
The presence of exiles at Editorial Bruguera is also relevant and of interest to any history of Hispano-American translation focused on transatlantic cultural relations. The incorporation of Latin American exiles into Bruguera, and its practical and symbolic effects on the importation, translation, and publication of world literature in translation, can be traced in at least four of the imprint’s literary collections: Libro Amigo, and specifically the Novela Negra series, edited by the Argentine writer Juan Martini, and also Narradores de Hoy, CLUB Bruguera, and Clásicos de Erotismo, edited by Eduardo Goligorsky with translations by Ricardo Pochtar and Beatriz Podestá Galimberti. The work done by Argentines in Bruguera’s final years contributed to, as Nora Catelli points out, the revamping of the publishing house’s image through the creation or modernization of literary collections that combined the traditional publishing approach of popular literature—pocket editions at an affordable price—with an important pivot to high literature, achieved through the publication of Latin American authors and original and reprinted translations of foreign literature.
Not all the exiles who worked in publishing as translators or in jobs related to imported literature stayed in the profession. Only some developed, starting in the mid-eighties, translation careers that were at the same time both vocational and professionalized. Nonetheless, this case study sparks reflections on the various social functions of translation as a tool for the professionalization of writing.
