NARRATING THE CITY: CARVALHO’S MADRID. CHARACTERIZATION AND TRANSLATION PROBLEMS

Abstract

This paper first analyzes the literary construction that Manuel Vázquez Montalbán uses for describing Madrid in Asesinato en el Comité Central (1997 [1981]). In particular, through the eyes of the main character we aim to determine the vision of the capital city’s urban and human center. Second, based on the translation of this novel made in 1984 by Lucrezia Panunzio Cipriani, this paper discusses how the cultural benchmarks have been translated into Italian. This analysis focuses primarily on the cultural references used by the author in the source text to describe and depict the society and culture of the capital city. In fact, the analysis of the translation-techniques used by Panunzio to translate these cultural elements into the target text allows determining whether the cultural core of the source text has been preserved. Thus, in the field of translation studies, this work belongs to descriptive studies focused on the outcome of the translation (Holmes, 1988; Hurtado Albir, 2004 [2001]).