Archipelago Books is currently in the process of publishing the entirety of Quino’s beloved Mafalda comic strips in translation to English, with the first volume released in June 2025. The man behind the mammoth task of bringing Mafalda into English is renowned literary translator Frank Wynne. I spoke with Frank about his memories of Mafalda, the strip’s modern-day resonance, and the impact she might make in the English-speaking world.

Arthur Malcolm Dixon: How did you first meet Mafalda? Do you remember the first time you read the comic strip, and were you a fan before you worked on the translation? 

Frank Wynne: I first discovered Mafalda back in the 1980s when I was living in Paris (so I first read the strips in French, long before I learned Spanish or lived in Argentina). From the first, I was a huge fan, and remained one ever since. I was also puzzled that no English translation seemed to exist since, to my mind, Mafalda is one of the three most important strip cartoons ever published, the other two being Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes. 

My first baby steps as a translator involved translating comics—both humorous cartoonists like Édika, and more serious graphic novelists like Enki Bilal. Over time, this led me to working as an editor in comic publishing, and at that point I did (briefly, unsuccessfully) attempt to run some of Quino’s strips in a magazine I edited.  

When I decided to translate full time, I realized that I couldn’t afford to live in Europe (and didn’t really want to), so I spent the next decade living mostly in Latin America, initially in Costa Rica, and subsequently in Argentina. When I was living in Buenos Aires, I discovered what an extraordinary influence Quino, through Mafalda, had had on Argentinean politics and those of Latin America more broadly. 

Reading her again (by now, in the original Spanish), I was struck by how painfully accurate her view of the world was (and remains), but I also got a sense of the time and place from which she came

A.M.D.: The original Mafalda strip ran from 1964 to 1973, and was politically daring in its time. How do you think Mafalda translates to the world of 2025? How does the strip resonate with contemporary readers?

F.W.: There are some things that never change, and Quino’s brilliant conjuring of a child’s curious mind still resonates as powerfully as it ever did. Mafalda is curious about everything—about politics, technology, science, and reading, and while some of her comments may seem preternaturally mature for a child, her questions are those of any child at any time. The Vietnam War may be over, communism and nuclear war may no longer be seen as the most dangerous threats to democracy, but there are still wars raging—in Gaza, Ukraine, the Maghreb and elsewhere—there are still threats to democracy from authoritarian regimes, some (but not all) of which identify as communist, and six-year-olds still ask their parents to explain things that adults can barely grasp themselves. Mafalda, in a way, is a six-year-old Cassandra, someone cursed with a wisdom that others refuse to believe. 

Other aspects of Mafalda have changed little since the days of Mafalda (who is only slightly older than I am): her relationship with her friends, with parents, with school are readily understandable by readers today. And it should be remembered that, while children have come to read Mafalda, the strip, like Schultz’s Peanuts, was initially written for and serialized in newspapers for adults. What is extraordinary about both is that they can appeal to readers of any age, and rereading them offers new insights as we grow older and (perhaps) a little wiser.

A.M.D.: Mafalda has already gained enormous popularity outside of Argentina and in languages other than Spanish. How do you think she’ll be received in the English-speaking world? What does it mean to you to bring such an iconic character to life in English?

F.W.: I was thrilled to be asked to usher Mafalda into English. It is a strip that has meant so much to me for so long that, in a sense, I have been translating it inside my head for a quarter of a century. Now, I get to share that with other people.

I think the anglophone world is ready for Mafalda. I’m not sure that the Nixon-era USA would have warmed to her, and, in a sense, I can see that contemporary editors and newspapers might have chosen not to run such a strip because—unlike Peanuts, which is broadly devoid of politics—Mafalda pointedly addresses notions of democracy, freedom, power, and equality, and does so with all the wonder (and disappointment) of an idealistic child

A.M.D.: What challenges come with translating the comic strip as a genre? How did the visual aspect of the work affect your translation? 

F.W.: There are many challenges to translating comic strips. First and foremost, I am limited by the speech balloons drawn by Quino—there is no room to explain things that do not require explaining in the original. Second, and importantly, unlike a graphic novel, where a single story can be told across fifty to seventy pages, strip cartoons were published daily or weekly in segments of three or four panels: each of these has to work on its own, without expecting the reader to have seen previous strips. The joke (or the reveal) has to land—it cannot be postponed to the next strip (even though these are now collected into a book).

Humor and wordplay are among the most difficult things to translate: puns cannot be translated, they have to be reinvented, but other forms of humor, from sarcasm to wit, need to be adapted in a new language. Quino’s rich vein of humor threw up countless challenges, but translation, by its very nature, thrives on difficulties. What was crucial, I felt, was that I maintained the voice(s) of the characters in the strip.

Every translation is about voice, whether that of a character or a narrator. Honing and shaping the different voices of Mafalda, Felipe, Susanita, Manolito, etc. was vitally important for the strip to work. Like a writer re-reading a draft of their novel or an actor playing a character, a translator needs to ask, “Would my character say this?” Because, by the time I reach a final draft, the characters are both Quino’s and mine…

A.M.D.: Mafalda is a little girl who is unafraid to ask questions and who speaks with self-assurance about the things that matter to her. What do you make of Mafalda’s representation of childhood? What might we learn from her?

F.W.: Mafalda’s representation of childhood is both utterly believable and profoundly naïve. It is difficult to imagine a real six-year-old as thoughtful, curious and principled as Mafalda—though I have an eight-year-old goddaughter who comes close.  Quino’s world is that of wonder and inquisitiveness, shot through with flashes of insight that, though precocious, feel genuine. It is not surprising that, when asked what Mafalda would have been when she grew up, Quino often replied that she would have been one of the “disappeared” in the Dirty War of 1976-1993. We need to remember that Mafalda (as a strip cartoon and as a character), did not exist in a political void, but with a specific context in Argentinean history, marked by coups d’état, corruption, and authoritarianism. A world not very different from the one in which many of us, in many countries, find ourselves today. If Mafalda can teach us one thing, it is that hope, principles, and a rigorous questioning of our society and our world are the only possible path forward.

Image: Cover of Mafalda: Book One by Quino, translated by Frank Wynne, from Archipelago Books.