FECHA

19/01/1959

REMITENTE

Emile Capouya

DESTINATARIOS/AS

Francisco Ayala

DESTINO

54 West 16th Street. Apt. 4F. New York 11 N. Y.

ORIGEN

S.l.

FICHA DESCRIPTIVA

[Carta mecanografiada con firma autógrafa y con membrete:] The Macmillan Company / Publishers / Sixty Fifth Avenue New York 11, N. Y. / TRADE DEPARTMENT

DEPÓSITO DEL ORIGINAL

Fundación Francisco Ayala

January 19, 1959

Mr. Francisco Ayala

54 West 16th Street

New York, New York

Dear Mr. Ayala:

We were glad to have a chance to read Muertes de perro. We have considered your book carefully and discussed it fully in our editorial meeting. However, we must advise you with regret that we do not feel we can make a publishing offer.

We do very much appreciate having seen Muertes de perro, and hope you may be successful in placing it elsewhere. Your book is being returned to you herewith.

Sincerely,

Emile Capouya

Editor

EC: rf

FECHA

21/07/1959

REMITENTE

Emile Capouya

DESTINATARIOS/AS

Francisco Ayala

DESTINO

Universidad de Puerto Rico

ORIGEN

S.l.

FICHA DESCRIPTIVA

[Carta mecanografiada con firma autógrafa y con membrete:] The Macmillan Company / Publishers / Sixty Fifth Avenue New York 11, N. Y. 

DEPÓSITO DEL ORIGINAL

Fundación Francisco Ayala

July 21, 1959

Mr. F. Ayala

Universidad de Puerto Rico

Facultad de Ciencias Sociales

Rio Piedras

Puerto Rico

Dear Mr. Ayala:

I am happy to tell you that The Macmillan Company would like to offer you a contract for your book Muertes de perro. The salient terms of the contract we propose are outlined below.

We should pay you, on the signing of the contract, an advance of $500 against the following royalty scale: 10% of the cash received on the first 6000 copies; 10% of the book’s list price on the next 4000; 12 ½ % of the list price on the next 5000 copies, and 15% thereafter, except that if, in any fiscal year after the first year of publication, and after the sale of 6000 copies, sales fall below 1000, royalty is to revert to 10% of the cash received for that year. (We interpret cash received to mean 60% of the list price of the book, since this figure represents the average net return from the bookseller, to whom we grant an average discount of 40%.)

The Macmillan Company would have world rights in the book in the English language.

We should account to you semi-annually.

The contract would contain the standard cheap edition, quantity sales, book club, and copyright permissions clauses.

If we were successful in negotiating for the sale of an English edition, we would divide proceeds with you 50/50, as we would in the case of the sale of second serialization rights. Should motion picture or similar rights be sold, we would obtain 10% of the proceeds. Translation and first serial rights would belong to you.

We should like to have an option on your next work, on terms to be arranged between us.

If these terms are agreeable to you, as I very much hope they are, would you be good enough to let me know, so that I may have the formal document drawn up for your signature?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Emile Capouya

Editor

Trade Department

EC: bg

FECHA

23/04/1962

REMITENTE

Emile Capouya

DESTINATARIOS/AS

Francisco Ayala

DESTINO

54 West 16th Street. Apt. 4F. New York 11 N. Y.

ORIGEN

S.l.

FICHA DESCRIPTIVA

[Carta mecanografiada con firma autógrafa y con membrete:] The Macmillan Company / Publishers / Sixty Fifth Avenue New York 11, N. Y. 

DEPÓSITO DEL ORIGINAL

Fundación Francisco Ayala

Mr. Francisco Ayala

54 West 16th Street

New York 11, New York

Dear Mr. Ayala:

I had not seen the notice of Mrs. Barea's translations of Hortelano. I am furious. The Prix Fomentor that Hortelano was awarded postdates, by at least a year, Mrs. Barea's commitment to translate Muertes de perro.

So far as I am concerned, whatever the condition of her health, this news makes a long delay in finishing work on your book absolutely inexcusable. I am going to attempt to make her give us the manuscript for translation in whatever state it may be. When we have examined it, we shall know exactly where we stand and what to do next.

This gives me an opportunity to thank you for the privilege of reading El fondo del vaso. I think it an extraordinary book, and a worthy successor to Muertes de perro, though surprisingly different in manner. I also very much appreciated your presenting me with copies of “Baile de mascaras” and “Violacion en California”. The theme of the latter story I remember reading in the newspapers seven or eight years ago. Did you read that item at the time? It was the case of a marine who claimed to have been assaulted by two girls, stripped of his clothing, and left naked on the highway within a few miles of his base. I have been puzzling over that story for years. I wonder if you would be willing to publish it in English. If so, I would try to sell it in translation to a magazine. And, if you agree, I would translate it, submitting the translation to you for your approval. Naturally, I want no other part in the enterprise than the privilege of being associated with the story’s appearance in English.

Cordially,

Emile Capouya

Senior Editor

Trade Department

ec/ki

FECHA

25/05/1962

REMITENTE

Emile Capouya

DESTINATARIOS/AS

Francisco Ayala

DESTINO

54 West 16th Street. Apt. 4F. New York 11 N. Y.

ORIGEN

S.l.

FICHA DESCRIPTIVA

[Carta mecanografiada con anotaciones a mano, firma autógrafa y con membrete:] The Macmillan Company / Publishers / Sixty Fifth Avenue New York 11, N. Y. 

DEPÓSITO DEL ORIGINAL

Fundación Francisco Ayala

May 25, 1962

Mr. Francisco Ayala

54 West 16th Street

New York, New York

Dear Mr. Ayala:

I enclose a copy of a letter just received from the British publisher of Muertes de perro, which quotes a letter from Mrs. Barea.

I note that she still has not committed herself to a date, and I shall try to get her to do so again. Messrs. Michael Joseph appear [sic] to be satisfied with her explanation, but I must confess that I am not.

Cordially,

Emile

Emile Capouya

Senior Editor

Trade Department

ec/ki

[Escrito a mano:] Dear Mr. Ayala:

This letter should have gone out to you on the 25^th , and I assumed that it had. I have just found it, however. This may account for a small area of mutual incomprehension in our conversation yesterday.

E.

[Copia de carta dirigida a A.L. Hart por Michael Joseph Lt.]

 4th May, 1962.

Mr. A. L. Hart, Jr.,

The Macmillan Company,

60, Fifth Avenue,

New York 11,

N.Y., U.S.A.

Dear Mr. Hart,

I asked Ilse Barea to explain how she came to give precedence to the Hortelano book. She has given me a detailed account of her health troubles over the last year (which I can confirm as I often see her and speak to her). I think I had better quote from her letter to me today.

“I read the Hortelano book for Weidenfeld in MS before it won the Fomentor, and was anything but impressed. I classified it as readable, but only just a good second-rate novel. However, I knew it was one of the easiest jobs for translation imaginable, the only one in my personal experience I could dictate straight on the tape. This was very important to me. As you know, I have had a double difficulty with my health for years: on the one side I cannot do much typing without greatly worsening the local arthritis in my two main typing fingers, up to a point when I simply cannot go on typing because of acute pain and swelling –on the other hand I have that wretched diabetes which will not respond quite as it ought to treatment, and produces baddish slumps each time I am under particular strain or worry, or overwork too grossly.

“Now, as a rule I do at least three versions of a translation. In the case of the Fomentor novel I only corrected the transcription from the tape: this is possible with dialogue of that sort, and the result appears not too bad, though I didn’t like it and felt bad about it.

“A Dog’s Death is an entirely different matter. I must have done about five versions by now at least of the two thirds for which the stylistic problems are extraordinarily great… I have had a beautifully typed version, and rejected. The more I have been working on the book, and this is by now a dreadfully long time, the more I have become convinced that it is an exceptionally good and exceptionally difficult novel entirely dependent on the rightness of style. It is by far the most difficult translation I ever did, and I have done many as you know, if I want to achieve the standard it needs and deserves. I started dictating on to tape, but it was a dismal failure. It just isn’t a book one can do –or I can translate, rather– without constant checking by sight, in typing. I tried dictating to various “secretaries”, and sometimes it worked, but more often I only retyped certain sections afterwards. Also, I had not one but two true-blue British friends going through version (3) and (4) with a fine comb. The amount of labour –and, incidentally, expense– I have invested may seem out of proportion, but anything less would be not quite good enough.

“Now I have another “fair copy” at home, and am going through it again. It must clearly be the last time, otherwise there will never be an end to it. And I know I’ll never be satisfied anyway. But I do insist that the other translation did not steal time I would have used on Ayala; it filled time I physically or technically couldn’t have used to any good effect on A Dog’s Death.

“As I said, I shall force myself now to put a stop to my endless revisions, and perhaps this will leave me with a less strained and unhappy conscience that I have now”.

I hope this will comfort the author and you as it does us.

I hope to see you when I come over to New York in October.

With best regards,

Yours sincerely,

AJ/JB

FECHA

18/10/1962

REMITENTE

Emile Capouya

DESTINATARIOS/AS

Francisco Ayala

DESTINO

Department of Spanish and Portuguese

ORIGEN

S.l.

FICHA DESCRIPTIVA

[Carta mecanografiada con firma autógrafa y con membrete:] The Macmillan Company / Publishers / Sixty Fifth Avenue New York 11, N. Y. 

DEPÓSITO DEL ORIGINAL

Fundación Francisco Ayala

October 18, 1962

Mr. Francisco Ayala

Department of Spanish and Portuguese

New York University

Washington Square

New York 3, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Ayala:

This last chapter in the Barea epic is too much. I have just written to Mrs. Anthea Joseph, of Michael Joseph, Ltd., asking if we can count on their collaboration in beginning over again with a new translator, as we ourselves are resolved to do. I suggested, la forme, that she verify the facts herself, but I made it plain that we mean to proceed with a new translation at once, except in the most unlikely event that the Barea manuscript actually exists and can be put into our hands.

Meanwhile, I should very much appreciate any suggestions you might have for a suitable translator. I shall be thinking about the matter myself in the next few days, and then hope to have the pleasure of conferring to you.

Cordially,

Emile Capouya

Senior Editor