Cristina GÓMEZ CASTRO (Universidad de Cantabria, Spain)

The Reception of Anthologies of Science Fiction and Horror & Terror Tales in the Last Years of Francoist Spain: Censoring Aliens and Monsters

The last years of Francoist dictatorship in Spain (1970s) were a period of political change and of a slow evolution in the legislation concerning the censorship that was exerted over any cultural product during that time. Regarding the publishing industry, the kind of literature dominating the market at the time was mainly the one known as mass literature and a considerable portion of it was integrated by the translation of anthologies of science fiction narratives and horror and terror tales coming from North America. These had originally been published there as pulps with titles such as Weird Tales or Terror Tales, something which makes difficult today to trace the English version from which they were translated due to the inclusion in these magazines of different tales from different authors. When these anthologies entered the system of censorship they were closely watched regarding aspects such as sexual morals and language, two of the most controversial issues at the time of the dictatorship. Some of them encountered problems because of their depiction of sexually charged scenes or immoral attitudes. In this presentation, a brief depiction of the kind of anthological material translated at the time will be offered, together with the examination of some of these files with a descriptive aim in mind. Censored or not, authorized or not, the principal objective of the publishers of these kinds of anthologies at the time was achieved since thanks to them both genres became well known in the country and encouraged some Spanish writers to engage in the production of similar material in a process of pseudotranslation that confirms their importance in the recipient culture.