An attempt to relieve oppression through the difficult paths of translation between Catalan and Spanish: The case of Avel·lí Artís-Gener

Abstract

In the uneasy context of the Francoist regime, some authors tried to alleviate the difficult cultural situation through creation and translation. This is the case of Avel·lí Artís-Gener, commonly known as Tísner, a Catalan writer who was exiled to Mexico for more than twenty years. Translation from Spanish into Catalan played a major role in Tísner’s efforts to keep Catalan culture alive, and this article presents the major translation initiatives in this language combination throughout the twentieth century in order to provide enough context to give Artís-Gener’s endeavours their real weight. In Mexico, he wrote his most famous novel, Paraules d’Opoton el Vell (‘Words of Opoton the elder’), which describes the imagined ‘discovery’ of Europe by the Aztecs and creates a bond between the fate of the Nahuatl and the Catalan people under the yoke of Spanish imperialism. In 1992 Artís-Gener decided that the novel had to be retranslated into Spanish and undertook that task himself. In addition, Tísner translated major Latin American authors from Spanish into Catalan, an experience that gave him the chance to regain control of the language imposed by the Francoist regime and use it as a form of relief from the political oppression.