Censoring poetics through translation: the filtered reception of Sylvia Plath in Franco’s Spain

Abstract

Inthis article I analyze Sylvia Plath’s reception in Spain during the Francoist dictatorship. Considering the feminist features that the author and her oeuvrepresent, I examine the conclusions drawn by the Censorship Board when the Spanish publishing houses requested to issue Plath’s works in translation. The censorship and import files stored at the General Archive of the Administrationin Madrid confirm thatseveral publishers repeatedly applied for permission to translate her only novel, The Bell Jar, into Spanish and Catalan from 1967 to 1982; a Spanish compilation of her poems in 1974; and to import her famous poetry collection, Ariel,in 1968. Nevertheless, the censors’ notes and verdicts reveal that her literary depth was neither admired nor understood by the ones who authorized, censored, or rejected the different editions of her work.