Realia, Style and the Effects of Translation in Literary Texts:: A Case Study of Cien Años de Soledad and its English and French Translations

Gabriel García Márquez, in an interview with Plinio Apuleyo, described Cien Años de Soledad as a “poetical synthesis of the tropic”, which he accomplished by putting together “a few scattered elements, but united by a very subtle and real subjective coherence” (Apuleyo Mendoza, 1993, p. 17). Considering this idea, we could identify the two most important elements for the writer when conceiving the novel: first, the specific poetical language, which we could name as “style”, and second, that coherent subjective reality, which is reached, together with stylistic features, with elements of his local reality, some of which are referred to in this research as Realia. The poetical style of the novel is characterized by, among other stylistic features, the frequent use of a regional and familiar register, which contribute to build up its specific tone and atmosphere. The Realia refer to and describe a local reality at the same time that they participate in the configuration of the narrative world. Both elements, being language and culture specific respectively, could be problematic in a process of translation. Given the importance of these language features in the composition of the novel, the question about their interlingual transfer results relevant for the reception and interpretation of the novel in translation. How did translators achieve the transfer of such strong contextual-dependent elements? Could the readers of those translations experience the effect of nostalgia, familiarity and even intimacy as many of the Spanish version readers claim to feel each time they read the novel? My objective with this dissertation is to analyze stylistic issues and Realia used by Gabriel García Márquez in Cien Años de Soledad (1967) and their translation into French (1968) and English (1970). This analysis aims to determine the effect spectrum of the translation formulations in the recreation of the novel in both target languages (TLs). It is important to mention that even if thi