Call It Translation: Henry Roth in Spain, or Translating the Multilingual Novel

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses Henry Roth’s Jewish-American novel and modernist masterpiece Call It Sleep (1934) and its long-forgotten translation into Spanish during the Francoist dictatorship. Through a combination of detective work and critical analysis, including comparisons with a later and more creative translation, the article shows how the bowdlerising of Roth’s text reveals, by contrast or inversion, the complexity of the text’s multilingual operations. Developing both the theoretical and practical implications of this analysis, the article draws out the thematic underpinnings of the novel’s style, examining the forms of difference that turn the encounter between languages into a unique mode of expression.