El humor de Damon Runyon: traducción comentada de un relato de Guys and Dolls

Abstract

Damon Runyon was an American writer !rom the early 20'h century that caused a great impact not only in the American literature given his particular style, but also in the popular culture thanks to the portrait he made of the world of Broadway, in Manhattan, New York, where all his stories full of colorful gangsters, gamblers and dancers take place. The lact that, unfortunately, he has barely been translated into Spanish is what motivated this paper in the first place, but upon discovering Runyon's distinct style and imaginative use of the language it became more and more obvious that all the peculiarities of his narrative and humor needed to be dug into. Therefore, this paper aims to tackle the main translation problems faced when translating such a particullar style by way of translating one of Damon Runyon's stories, The Snatching of Bookie Bob, !rom the book Guys and Dolls, an all·lime American classic. With the translation and posterior analysis of the problems that it bore, it became clear that in order to successfully transfer the comic effects of a text it is necessary to find the key to its humor, which in Runyon's case consists of the imitation of oral literature, being as how American humor has an oral origín.