Translations of English-language poetry in post-war Spain (1939-1983)

In the years immediately following the Spanish Civil War, the domestic poetry market underwent a lengthy and traumatic transformation stemming directly from the conflict and the Francoist regime’s implementation of systematic censorship. The death and exile of many of the preeminent poets from previous generations, along with the closure and relocation to Latin America of many publishing houses, left a considerable cultural void which would be partly filled with translated texts, most of them from authors writing in English. This article outlines some of the main results of a comprehensive study into the impact of censorship on the Spanish translations of English-language poetry between 1939 and 1983. Although the quantitative data point to a high authorisation rate for translated poetry, the regime used several mechanisms to curb the public’s exposure to ideas deemed harmful which profoundly impacted the translation and reception of those texts.