A Possible Instance of Editorial Self-Censorship The Late Publication of Orlando in Spain

Abstract

In order to understand why Orlando was not published in Spain until 1977, almost forty years after the original publication in England, the Francoist regime context is analyzed in this reflection paper, as well as the editorial censorship and self-censorship procedures. It is assumed that this novel by Virginia Woolf is an example of the latter, based on the censorship criteria established by Abellán, since the text transgressed at least three of them. Moreover, the first translation of Orlando in Spain (1993), carried out by Enrique Ortenbach, is analyzed and compared to the one by Borges (1937), not only the first translation of this novel to Spanish, but also the most popular and commercial to date, in order to determine the motivations to commission this retranslation to Ortenbach and the features of this text, in the light of the changes in the Spanish social context. To this end, the paper also draws from the concepts and practices of paratexts, retranslation, and translation criticism. It is concluded that the retranslation by Ortenbach is active, according to Pym’s proposal, and that it could have been dictated by the commercial (and momentary) success of the film adaptation of the novel in 1992. Also, although the translation decisions are not linked to the Spanish social changes, Ortenbach retrieves from the original the feature of Orlando’s gender distinction, through the use of the personal pronouns she/he when alluding to the character.