Trends in the translation of a minority language

The historical branch of Descriptive Translation Studies has difficulty accounting for the numerous factors that intervene in translation flows. The analysis of translations from Dutch into Spanish in the second half of the twentieth century is no exception. Social and ideological contexts may account for the international interest in genres such as Dutch theological works in the 1960s and later in children’s literature from the Netherlands. However, there have been surprisingly few Spanish translations from Dutch, despite institutional campaigns such as those at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1993 and the Spanish national book fair Liber in 1995. This paper surveys two main conditioning factors: the role of publishing companies in the selection process, and the work of a Spanish translator, Francisco Carrasquer, who has done much to promote Dutch literature in Spanish and has translated many works himself. The translation of Dutch works in Spain can thus be seen as a complex web in which social, commercial and personal factors are intertwined.