La plaça del diamant, one of Mercè Rodoreda's best-known works, has been the protagonist of a controversy unleashed on networks in recent days. User Isaac Calordeforn rescued the American translation of this reading, published by Virago Press in 2013, and shared some of the surprises he encountered on his Twitter account on Sunday.
“I think this translation into English, paid for with money from the Institut Ramon Llull, is not good for Mercè Rodoreda. I hope that in other languages things have been done with more delicacy and dedication”, she lamented in her profile. The message was accompanied by a photograph of the book's cover, in which two people appear dancing in front of the Almudena cathedral, in Madrid, a monument that, in addition, as the writer Melcior Comes recalled on his networks, "did not exist during the years of action in the novel”, in the 1930s. The author of Tots els mecanismes questions the fact that “two Catalans are shown dancing in front of the Madrid cathedral where Franco's wife is buried”.
The Institut Ramon Llull was quick to react. Joan de Sola, head of the entity's literature area, assured La Vanguardia that "the Institut does not have the capacity to decide on the graphic image of a book" and recalled that "our job is to do everything possible to translate the maximum number of books from Catalan to other languages. To do this, we provide a grant for translations, which covers a significant part of the expenses, and a second dedicated to promotion. However, in the work of images, if we are ever consulted, although it is not something that happens often, we can give our opinion and say whether or not it is appropriate. We have made more than two or three calls, but many times we find the books already finished and about to be distributed or even already published. Even so, changing it is a competition that depends exclusively on publishers and their marketing teams”.
It is not the only peculiarity that readers have found in this edition, as the character of Quimet becomes Joe, Gran de Gràcia Street becomes High Street and Colometa becomes 'Pidgey'. Peter Bush, the responsible translator, explains that “it was a decision I made because, if these names come out in Catalan, they don't have the same resonance and the English-speaking reader doesn't have the whole context. I don't always translate names but in this case it seemed appropriate”. However, he points out that the BBC adapted his version for radio this summer and respected the original names.
He does not consider his to be an ill-advised decision, "it is simply what I considered most suitable", and he gives an example adapted from another of the previous English versions that were made on La plaça del Diamant. "One of the translations was done in Irish English and I remember one word perfectly, 'els escamots', that is, the patrols, because the translator called them 'Regulars'. Well, the Regulars were the IRA patrols in the Civil war against the English. Indeed, the translator was Irish and her father was very militant and had a role in the war of independence."
Regarding the cover, he concludes, “it is true that it is not the most appropriate, but the church looks diffuse and in any case the English reader will not find this controversy. We shouldn't make a big deal out of this either, it's anecdotal."
