Feminist publishing projects after Franco: Solidarity through cultural translation

Abstract

In the 1960s and 1970s, second-wave feminism promoted important feminist publishing platforms, especially in North American and European countries. After the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), the need to seek foreign ideological mothers led to the emergence of the first feminist series and journals in Spain. In Barcelona, in 1976, the journal Vindicación Feminista (1976-1979) was born, giving voice to many international feminist authors and their publications. A year later, in 1977, in Madrid, the publishing house Debate produced the series Tribuna Feminista (1977-1982). In 1978, in Barcelona, the first Spanish feminist publishing house, LaSal. Edicions de les Dones (1978-1990), was founded. In this article, three post-Francoist feminist publishing projects based on “solidarities” are presented. All of them were “agents of cultural translation” that shared a main objective: to normalize Iberian feminism by introducing new literary movements, works and authors for theoretical discussion after the National-Catholic-patriarchal regime of Francoism. The arrival of feminist literature through practices of “solidary cultural translation” was crucial to the social transformations at the time.