Ideology and the Translation of Children’s Literature: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Franco’s Spain

Abstract

This study examines the translation of children’s literature under state censorship during Franco’s Spain (1939-1975), with specific reference to the Spanish translations of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). At the same time as it lays a particular focus on the impact of Francoism on texts produced for children in Francoist Spain, this study also concerns itself with the relations between ideology and children’s literature in a more general sense. The chapters integrate analysis of sources including the regime’s censorship laws, the pre-publication translation drafts submitted by the publishers in compliance with the regime’s censorship requirement, the official censorship records, showing the censors’ “readings” of the translation drafts, and also, school textbooks used under Franco. Based on the examination of such sources, this study demonstrates the censors’ objections to the translations of Twain’s works, as a result of both their compliance with the censorship regulations imposed by the regime and their conscious efforts to defend an ideal Francoist child image vis-à-vis its foreign “others” as induced by the translations. Meanwhile, proceeding from a critical conceptualisation of ideology, the chapters in this study also elaborate on the complex power relationships involved in the activities of translating for children under Francoism.