Losada, Sudamericana and Emecé: The Hispanic-Argentine Translating Bridge of Three Major Publishers (1936-1955)

Abstract

This article offers an overview of the translation work carried out in the book series of three major publishers that marked the “golden age” of the Argentine publishing industry: Losada, Sudamericana, and Emecé. In the context of the so-called “Argentine publishing boom”, it is crucial to point out the instrumental activity carried out by a group of Spanish exiles in the southern country after the outbreak of the Civil War in the Peninsula. In addition to officiating as founders of the publishing companies, they served as editors, literary consultants, readers or directors. More importantly, they worked as translators. Between 1936 and 1955, these three companies assumed the dual objective of modernizing the local publishing industry and renewing existing publishing catalogs. The apparent success of their collections was undoubtedly due both to the high quality of the published translations, and to the introduction of new materials, genres, and authors that aroused the interest of the burgeoning Latin American readership. From Argentina, the spirit of these publications radiated to other countries of the continent and provided a boost to the development of new fields of reading and study, such as literature, social sciences, law, philosophy, pedagogy, natural sciences, or applied sciences.