María del Pilar Sinués: una traductora de obras edificantes

Abstract

"María del Pilar Sinués (1835-1893) wrote more than a hundred works, most of them novels. She also collaborated with magazines and participated in different cultural institutions. The author was a representative of traditional Christian values, and her writings dealt with, and intermingled, literature and pedagogy. She dedicated much of her time and effort to translation; however, her contributions in this regard are less well known. In fact, Sinués de Marco, like Joaquina García Balmaseda (1837-1911) and Faustina Sáez de Melgar (1834-1895), devoted most of her time to translating French works which were published in the main newspapers of her time. This essay discusses how she translated into Spanish the novels of many writers, some of them well known, such as Alfred Musset (1810-1857), Paul Féval (1817-1887) and Hendrik Conscience (1812-1883) and others not so renowned, such as Mauricio Barr (1862-1923), Mathilde Bourdon (1817-1888), and Gyp (1850-1932). The writer’s interest in translating foreign novels that served to educate women and transform them into good Christians will also be analyzed, highlighting how Sinués promoted edifying, formative, and orthodox novels."