H. P. Lovecraft’s Ethnocentric Violence in The Horror at Red Hook

Abstract

H. P. Lovecraft is considered one of the leading authors in weird fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His concept of cosmic horror changed genres and served as an inspiration for many modern writers. The author's xenophobic and ethnocentric ideas are present in his literary work, with an emphasis on the racist themes so intrinsic to the short story “The Horror at Red Hook” (1927). The paratexts of Marsely de Marco and Giovana Bomentre’s translations of the short story, both from 2018, will be analyzed. Berman's retranslation theory (1984) and Albachten and Gürçağlar's theories (2018) will be used as bibliographic sources, as well as Genette's study on paratexts and their relation to translation (1987/2018) and Joshi's biographical work (2013), in order to contextualize our findings within the broader field of Translation Studies.