A Decade of Spanish American Prose Writing

Abstract

If we were to judge by what we see people reading in the streetcars and on park benches, or by what we observe on inspection of the show windows of bookshops, it might be said that one of the most significant developments in Spanish American prose writing today is the art of translating foreign books.* This last summer, for instance, in Mexico City, riding the busses at the rush hours, I had the impression that most commuters were reading either the Spanish edition of a well known American monthly or other translations, particularly of novels. One, on which a film then showing was based, seemed to be extremely popular. Again, the windows of the bookshops were crammed with translations, from Hemingway to Simenon, from Sartre to Mickey Spillane. The book lists and advertisements of Latin American publishers confirm this impression. The Latin Americans have always read foreign literature, of course, but it seems to me that there is a significant new element in this matter today. In the past an elite read foreign works in the original language, especially if it were French, and translations-like all books-had small printings. Today there is a mass consumption and a mass production of translations. With the increasing literacy rate, French, English, American, and other foreign works, are now being read not only by the intellectuals, genuine or pseudo, but by tens of thousands of people in all walks of life, particularly in the great urban centers. Literary and cultural cosmopolitanism, for so long the privilege of the few, may now be the commonplace of the many. True, for some this may consist of no more than the reading of foreign trash-and much trash is being translated-but for others it may mean the acquisition of real cultural assets from abroad.