Un mapa de la literatura italiana del siglo xx en la España franquista a través de los expedientes de censura

This paper offers an exploration of 20th century Italian translations in Franco’s Spain through the editorial censorship dossier preserved in the Archivo General de la Administración (AGA) in Alcalá de Henares. The data – most unpublished – are first compared with the catalogues, followed by a comparative reading of the typescripts preserved in the archive with the printing proofs and the editions that were finally published. Direct observation of this varied documentation makes it possible to reconstruct the mechanisms of publication and to recompose the trajectory of translations and imports of foreign volumes. The anomalies of the difficult and fragmentary reception – both in Spanish and Catalan – of Italian literature are thus studied, highlighting which books were never published or were published in mutilated and «softened» form. We review the reception of representative works of fiction, poetry, theatre, essays and film scripts, spanning all the decades of the dictatorship. The material as a whole confirms the coercive nature of the censorship system, but, at the same time, its pragmatism, its arbitrary nature and the presence of external conditioning factors (such as the Einaudi affair). Despite the evolution of the Francoist apparatus, it is clear that most Italian works, often identified with «realism», were hindered because they violated the moral orthodoxy of the regime. The slowness and insecurity of the procedure, moreover, led to self-censorship on the part of publishers and literary agents. The combined effects of repressive apparatus and self-censorship meant that key works of Italian literature arrived in Spain with enormous delays and, in some cases, after the end of the dictatorship and its oppressive control system.