La Terre, de Émile Zola, o el desentierro de un caso de traducción y censura durante el franquismo

Abstract

Through the analysis of a case of translation and censorship, this study offers a recreation of the microhistory of La terre (1883), by Émile Zola, at the time when this foreign French novel was imported into the Francoist literary system, focusing on the processes of reception, conditioning and appropriation to which this work was subjected by the Franco regime in order to ensure its ideological adequacy. The study of the two Spanish versions published during the dictatorship will show that Zola’s controversial novel went through an exercise of self-censorship and metacensorship which aimed mainly at silencing a clear anti-religious sentiment among the French peasant community depicted in the original text, seen as unacceptable under the catholic and agrarian society ruled by Franco.