Estudios de Teoría Literaria (Jul 2023)
Translation and censorship in Martín Fierro´s English Version by Catherine Ward
Abstract
This article reconstructs the translation scenes that preceded the publication, in 1967, of the English version of José Hernández's Martín Fierro by Catherine Ward. During the process of editing the classic Argentine poem, which was commissioned by the Organization of American States (OAS) to the State University of New York Press (SUNY Press), the translator suffered a form of censorship that affected part of her intellectual production and interfered in the interpretations of the poem projecting negative images of Argentine culture. In the conception of Ward's Martín Fierro, the pursuit of an international recognition for a literary work and a young woman's goal to crystallize a translation project that entailed a critical view of the text converged. By reconstructing these scenes of the translation, we intend to confer visibility to the translator and rescue part of the materials discarded during the publication process.
