Censorship and the Translation of Children’s Literature: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in Franco’s Spain (1939–1975)

Abstract

This chapter examines the translation of children’s literature produced under state censorship during Franco’s Spain (1939–1975). Focusing on the Spanish translations of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and based on archival sources that demonstrate the censors’ decisions on the translations, this chapter highlights the particular censorial objections incurred to the translations of Twain’s novel in Franco’s Spain, and provides insight into the censorship mechanism under Franco’s regime. It also illustrates the extent to which the censorship of Twain’s text is contingent on the deviations of Twain’s boy hero, Huckleberry Finn, from the ideal Spanish childhood image—an image that was constructed based on the regime’s National Catholic ideologies and firmly defended through the regime’s censorship system.