Influence in translation: Dirty Realism and the Spanish novel and short story (1985--2000)

Literary histories seldom account for the presence of translated literature and its impact on a national literary production. Through a polysystems approach, this dissertation examines the appropriation of the United States' literary current "Dirty Realism" (also known as "Minimalism") by a group of young Spanish writers at the end of the 20th century. In 1986, in the same year that Spain became a member of the European Community and consolidated its democracy, Spanish publishing houses experienced a translation "boom," taking an avid interest in publishing the works of American writers such as Raymond Carver at the forefront of Dirty Realism. Shortly thereafter, the brisk syntax and set of cultural references said to be characteristic of this movement began entering contemporary Spanish writing. Novels such as Ray Loriga's Lo peon de todo (1992), Jose Angel Manas's Historias del Kronen (1994), and Benjamin Prado's Raro (1995), became the paradigm of a new generation of writers. These writers, self-consciously and insistently associated with the United States, were grouped under the literal translation of the English term: "Realismo sucio." While trans-Atlantic studies most often examine the relationship of Spanish literature with that of its former colonies, my dissertation shifts the focus to Spain's relationship with the United States. Chapter One discusses the publication chronology of Dirty Realism works in translation and their critical reception in the United States vis-a-vis Spain. Chapter Two studies the translations of Dirty Realism as primary texts in order to account for the radical differences between the two movements. Analysis shows that the "dirty" dialectical English of "Dirty Realism" was "cleaned" and rendered into "Standard" Spanish. This explains, in part, why the socioeconomic class of Carver's characters failed to translate into Spanish Realismo sucio. In contrast, Chapter Three demonstrates the ease with which American violence translated into Realismo sucio. While the Dirty Realism works do not portray graphic violence, they nonetheless inserted themselves into Spain's imaginary of a violent United States. The fictionalized readings carried out by protagonists within the works of Realismo sucio attest to a gendered poetics of violence as "exported" by the United States. Frequently billed as a new and Americanized literary current that broke with Spanish literary traditions, Realismo sucio nonetheless subtly reaffirmed Spain's longstanding ties to Realism in a decade that experienced the undoing of much of Spain's "Spanish-ness."...