CHALLENGES AND IMPLICATIONS OF LITERARY TRANSLATION IN THE SERIAL EL HOMBRE ARTIFICIAL, BY HORACIO QUIROGA

Abstract

This article analyzes the challenges of translating Horacio Quiroga's serialized novel El hombre artificial (1910/2019), using the English version The Artificial Man (2021), independently translated by Joaquín de la Sierra, as a comparative object. Set in the context of the Argentine periodical press of the early 20th century, this work dialogues with the social and cultural transformations of the time, when serialized novels occupied a central space in the formation of popular readers and the professionalization of writers. The research adopts a qualitative and comparative approach, examining divergences between the source text and its translation in stylistic, ideological, and structural aspects. The study highlights translation choices that soften the dramatic intensity and emotional charge characteristic of the genre. These choices are discussed in light of the categories of domestication and foreignization (Venuti, 1995), correspondence (Britto, 2012), and the dialectical relationship between form, content, and context (Bassnett, 2003). In this theoretical framework, translation is understood as a political and ethical gesture that reaffirms the role of the translator as a cultural mediator and witness to otherness. The analysis demonstrates that translation decisions generate aesthetic and ethical implications that result in the erasure of historical and cultural marks from the source text, concluding that the translation of El hombre artificial reveals tensions between market, aesthetics, and critical reception. Finally, the need to expand critical and translation studies reflections on popular literary genres in Latin America is emphasized.