Abstract
This chapter offers an analysis of a novel in which Catalan writer Agustí Bartra fictionalizes his exile experience, starting with his stay at the French concentration camp of Argelés and following with his diaspora through different Latin American countries and his long settlement in México. Bartra initially published this novel in Catalan, but once in Mexico, he self-translated it, rewriting some parts with a Spanish-speaking audience in mind. Years later, with his return to Barcelona in mind, he retranslated the work into Catalán. In this way, we can see that the instances of self-translation accompanied the author’s displacements, his resistance to Franco’s regime, and his affirmation of a Catalan identity. The analysis of some of the translation choices he made in each instance, in order to address different audiences, give us an important tool to reflect on some of the key conflicts faced by exiled Republicans.
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Notes
- 1.
After the Spanish Civil War, Mexico, then governed by Lázaro Cárdenas, was one of the countries to which the most people fleeing Francoism had exiled to. The cultural impact of this phenomenon was visible in the literary field, in which the Spanish actively intervened without abandoning active ties to their communities of reference.
- 2.
This edition includes a prologue by Josep Carner, another renowned Catalan intellectual exiled in Mexico.
- 3.
After the 1968 edition, back in Catalonia, Bartra had his book republished in Spanish by Plaza y Janés, based on the Mexican edition of 1958. In 1974, Proa republished the 1968 edition. This is considered the definitive edition of the novel, and it contains a prologue by Francesc Vallverdú.
- 4.
Some notable self-translations are L’arbre de foc (1946), Catalan version of the poem Tree of Fire (1940), published in the Dominican Republic during the first months of exile, and The Moon Dies with Water (1968), Spanish version of La lluna mor amb aigua, published in Barcelona in 1968. An exhaustive list of works self-translated into Spanish and Catalan can be read in Azpeitia Ortiz (2018).
- 5.
The Premio Fastenrath Prize Foundation created with donations from the widow of Johannes Fastenrath Hürxthal (1839–1908)—legal expert, writer, translator, and German Hispanist, member of the Royal Spanish Academy. From 1909–2003, it was awarded annually to writers of Spanish nationality writing in Spanish and in Catalan (in this latter case it acquired the name of Premi Fastenrath).
- 6.
The publication of works in Catalan was not exclusive to Mexico. In Argentina, for instance, the editorial service of Revista Catalunya was known for receiving and remunerating contributions by Catalan writers who begun to arrive to the country in 1939.
- 7.
Censorship was one of the most efficient tools that Francoism designed to hide the voices of intellectuals critical of the regime. For a comprehensive study of this complex system, see Fernando Larraz (2014).
- 8.
Manuel Martínez Roca, ex-member of the UGT and ex-soldier, worked as manager for Grijalbo publishers, founded in 1949 in Mexico by the Catalan exile Juan Grijalbo and to which Bartra contributed important translations (FL 2016b, 528). Upon his return, Manuel made his brother Francisco Martínez Roca his associate to build the homonymous publishing house that published the Catalan version Crist de 200.000 braços.
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Simón, P. (2019). Self-Translation and Exile in the Work of Catalan Writer Agustí Bartra. Some Notes on Xabola (1943), Cristo de 200.000 brazos (Campo de Argelés) (1958) and Crist de 200.000 braços (1968). In: Bujaldón de Esteves, L., Bistué, B., Stocco, M. (eds) Literary Self-Translation in Hispanophone Contexts - La autotraducción literaria en contextos de habla hispana. Translation History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23625-0_7
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