“England's Most Precious Gift”: Virginia Woolf's Transformations into Spanish

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter focuses a world literary lens on the reception of Virginia Woolf's work in Spanish‐speaking countries. It looks into the process of translation, dissemination, critical assessment, and transformations of Virginia Woolf's work through a constellation of narratives produced in Woolf's wake. Departing from critical examination of the decisive role of Argentinean publisher Victoria Ocampo as disseminator of Woolf's oeuvre in Spanish, this chapter explores the complex interactions which the reception of Woolf's work entailed, ultimately unveiling how the process of assimilation and appropriation of her work is often conditioned by gender politics. Whereas male writers such as Jorge Luis Borges and Gabriel García Márquez saw in Woolf's work an inspiring conjunction of the marvelous real which would open the path to what later came to be known as magic realism, women writers, such as Ocampo herself, Montserrat Roig, and Carmen Martín Gaite were inspired by Woolf's feminist agenda, key in fostering a feminist awareness in South America and Spain.