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Abstract:
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The Spanish and Catalan versions of Jordi Sierra i Fabra’s novel Campos de fresas have attracted numerous readers making the novel one of the bestsellers, especially among young readers in Spain and Latin America. Moreover, numerous secondary schools have also included it in their reading lists. The aim of the current paper is to investigate the sources of this literary success - is the storyline itself the factor responsible for attracting the readership or, rather, Sierra i Fabra’s writing style? The analysis will be done through a comparative and critical analysis of the two versions of Campos de fresas, Spanish and Catalan. Special emphasis is also put on the quality of the Catalan version of the novel, translated from Spanish by the author himself. The results of the examination of the most relevant linguistic phenomena of both versions of Campos de fresas are quite positive as the novel is characterised by high linguistic and literary quality. The Catalan translation, likewise, is in general successful in spite of some errors and sporadic mistranslations. However, due to the narrative excellence of the novel, its young readers can easily interiorise the lexical richness and syntactic constructions it offers. The plot of Campos de fresas invites them to reflect on the real situations and stories familiar from their own social context in which they live and develop. |
