The Struggles of Translating Henry Miller in Franco’s Spain (1939-1975): The Different Versions of Black Spring (1936)

Abstract

In this article I analyze the translations of Henry Miller’s novel, Black Spring (1938), in Spain throughout Francoism. A quick analysis of these two translations —both carried out during the last stage of the regime, the former under the title Primavera negra, translated by Jordi Arbonès in 1970, and the latter, Primavera negra as well, translated by Carlos Bauer in 1970 and published in 1978— serves to shed light on the effects of not only the institutional censorship that was established by the regime, but also the repercussions of self-censorship performed by the translators.