The Role and Function of the Translator in post-Civil War Spain: Juan G. de Luaces

Abstract

One of the most prolific translators into Spanish in the first two decades after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was Juan González-Blanco de Luaces or Juan G. de Luaces, as he was known. The large number of translations he produced draws a parallel with other outstandingly prolific translators of the postwar period, such as Eduardo de Guzmán Espinosa, Manuel Bosch Barrett, Alfonso Nadal, Julio Gómez de la Serna or Oliver Brachfeld. The initial section of my work attempts to locate the reader in the historical context in which Juan G. de Luaces’ work as writer and translator took place. The period I will refer to takes in the first half of the 20th century until the early 1960s, when Luaces died. Secondly, I will provide a section which carries biographical data on Luaces, my intention being to demonstrate how the ideology of a given translator may influence the target text. In the following section, I will highlight the translators’ role, function and relevance in the literary world of post-war Spain, concentrating on the figure of Juan G. de Luaces. Finally, I will briefly compare two of his translations: Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, produced in 1943, and Rosamond Lehmann’s The Weather in the Streets, published in 1945.