Who Translated Lorca into English First? An Analysis of the 1929 New York Translations and their Possible Authorship

Abstract

This article analyses the disputed and currently unresolved issue of who was responsible for the first translations into English of the work of Federico García Lorca. These were versions of two of the Gypsy Ballads, which were published anonymously in August 1929 in the New York based Hispanic journal Alhambra, shortly after Lorca’s arrival in the city. The article first presents the background to these translations and the publication in which they appeared, and examines the respective biographical merits and circumstantial claims of the two candidates to be Lorca’s first translators into English, Philip Cummings and Ángel Flores. The article then analyses the textual characteristics of the translations, compares and contrasts them with the translational styles of both candidates in their other Spanish-English poetry translations, and offers some conclusions as to who was most likely to have been Lorca’s first translator into English.