Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas

This article focuses on the effects of censorship on the translations of two of Roth's novels into Spanish: Portnoy's Complaint (1969) and The Professor of Desire (1977). These two novels, published in Spanish for the first time in 1977 and 1978 respectively — a period when Spain had barely left behind General Francisco Franco's dictatorship (1939-1975) — suffered various forms of censorship. The article shows how the four criteria (Abellán 1980) used by the censors of the period — sexual morality, linguistic decorum, politics and respect for religion as an institution — were applied in the case of these two Roth novels.