The Implied Author as an Ethical Buffer: An Argument from Translated and Censored Fiction

Narrative fiction obviously invites readers to adopt a fictionalizing stance, i.e., to assume that the narrated worlds and narrators are fictions. Less obviously, I argue that positing an Implied Author (IA) is also an intended part of this stance: when a flesh-and-blood author (FABA) publishes fiction, she intends that any values inferable from the text be attributed to an IA and not to the FABA: she intends readers to posit the IA as her ethical buffer. I illustrate this with Elvira Lindo's Manolito Gafotas and its censoring American translation. Whereas the censorship suggests that the original is ethically questionable (e.g., regarding racism), in my reading it is the IA who is rightfully ambivalent: the IA of fiction serves as the FABA's ethical buffer. Furthermore, the censoring translation itself still illustrates the IA's relevance: Lindo's readers in different markets will construct different IAs, yet none will have constructed the FABA's ethics.