Censorship in Franco´s Spain about the novel of Mario Vargas Llosa "The City and the Dogs"

Abstract

"The City and the Dogs" is the first novel by the famous Peruvian writer, Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, which was published in the author's youth. In 1963, at the time of the novel's publication, the author was 27 years old. It is known that Mario Vargas Llosa had to overcome many difficulties on the way to publishing the work. After reading the manuscript of the novel, the Catalan editor and founder of the publisher ¨Seix Barral¨, Carlos Barral aimed to publish the work by his publishing house. Barral has been in lengthy negotiations with Spanish censorship. In these negotiations were also involved general director of information agency, Robles Piquer, representative of cenorship and from the side of author, a friend of Robles Piquer, a professor at the University of Barcelona, ​​Jose Maria Valverde, which was the jury member of ¨Biblioteca Breve¨ award. He wrote the preface for the first editions of the novel. Mario Vargas Llosa's sympathies for the Communist Party and the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s and 1960s are well known. The novel clearly shows the author's leftist positions, his criticism and cynical attitude towards the Peruvian military system and education system. To express the prejudices, racial and class inequalities, corruption and injustice in a society living under a dictatorial regime, the author does not shy away from using the vulgar language of adults and describing sexual scenes, that allow the reader to perceive and imagine the novel realistically.It was the novel's anti-militaristic tone, rude language, and sexual episodes that presented a kind of "embarrassment" to Franco´s censorship, which was much more lighted in the 1960s than in previous years. The novel did not satisfy censorship criterias, cause it included, offensive themes of religion (the episode of the priest), sexuality-related topics, inappropriate and provocative language, and thoughts against the regime (criticism of the military system) which was unacceptable to Spanish censors.As a result of negotiations conducted by Carlos Barral, censorship allowed the author to publish his first novel, in Franco´s Spain, led by the rightists. In this article, we will discuss the negotiation process for publishing a novel. Despite the novel's anti-militaristic attitude, under the Spanish censorship it was published whith a minimal changes, unlike from the Soviet Union, where, as Vargas Llosa noted, the novel was "amputated." In the article we will discuss also why Spanish censorship allowed the publication of a novel and with minor modifications that was considered as an allegory of anti-Francoism.