From the periphery to the canondetective fiction in Spain through the works of Garcia Pavón, Cain, Vázquez Montalbán and Thompson. An application of polysystem theories of translation

Abstract

Dissertation Abstract: Detective fiction has become one of the most popular genres in our present times; but why and how did detective fiction become so popular in Spain? This dissertation studies the development of the genre of detective fiction in Spain, written both by Spanish writers and as translations from American authors, framed within the historical period that extends from the Franco Regime up to our present days. It was during the dictatorship that translations of foreign detective fiction started to reach the country and a sense of collective imagination on the topic began to be created, influenced also by the movie adaptations that reached Spain, by the numerous pseudotranslations, and by journals like El Caso. The foreign model of detective fiction was adopted by national writers who re-created it within a new context: classic detective fiction influenced the work of Francisco García Pavón, and hardboiled detective fiction –analyzed through the works of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson in a descriptive analysis of excerpts of their translations as part of our hypothesis- was the reference for Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s series. Censorship was one of the elements common to all these writers, and its influence over the genre’s development is hereby assessed, as well as in relation to each author. In this dissertation it is claimed that translation was the innovative force that brought the genre of detective fiction into the Spanish Polysystem: the genre remained at the periphery of the system upon its arrival, but slowly and progressively has moved away from that position into a central canonical one, resulting in a literary boom of detective fiction.