5 - Chronotope and Language Change in Arbó's Tino Costa

Summary

Realist versus mythical discourse in the 1968 version

Tino Costa appeared in 1947, at a time when Franco's regime was determined to eradicate Catalan culture by making it extremely difficult to publish translations or works by contemporary authors. In the years prior to the war, characterised by the unbridled optimism generated by the Republic and the new Generalitat, Arbó had published several novels and plays to critical acclaim. When he resumed his career in the 1940s, the radically different conditions of the new situation forced him to make a difficult choice: to either go underground or change his expressive medium. With respect to Tino Costa, he reached a compromise with the authorities: as was often the case at the time, he was only allowed to publish the original manuscript by simultaneously issuing a parallel version in Spanish. The translation immediately achieved considerable success, which helps us to understand why the author, praised by readers and critics alike, decided to focus on the Spanish market. In subsequent years, he wrote a number of very popular biographies and novels which made him one of the most influential figures in the literary milieu, to such an extent that in 1948 his novel Bajo las piedras grises was awarded the Premio Nadal.

As has been discussed in Chapter 2, in the 1960s Arbó's ideological stance was at odds with a cultural climate that embraced Marxism and new tendencies such as structuralism.