Translation and censorship under Franco as ideological and cultural rewriting
Translation: Kristin Addis
Abstract
In the closed cultural environment of the Franco dictatorship, under an iron-clad artistic censorship, translators of theatrical texts gradually found ways of breaking the rules imposed by the regime. Thus, the translation of American works served not only to answer to theatrical and commercial needs, but also to introduce novel elements; thanks to these elements, it was possible to mitigate in part the univocal discourse of the totalitarian regime. Thanks to translation, the cultural and ideological discourse of American authors was introduced into Spanish society, conveniently rewritten, and over time changed the cultural, ideological and political scene, having become, to some extent, a reference point for these fields. Likewise, the cultural and ideological principles of the original works were manipulated so that they would be acceptable for the receiving system, with the result that translation became in the end an active agent in the Americanization of the dramatic and cultural discourse.
