La Historia Sin Fin -neverending Story- Spa-por... Apr 2026
A unique problem for Spanish and Portuguese is that both languages, like German, have formal and informal “you.” However, they lack a neuter pronoun for the abstract reader. Ende’s original uses du (informal), assuming an intimate relationship. Spanish’s tú and Brazilian Portuguese’s você (with singular conjugation) maintain this. But in European Portuguese, using tu can feel overly familiar or even childish, while você feels distant. Some European editions awkwardly alternate, breaking the spell.
Furthermore, Ende’s play on Geschichte (story/history) is lost in both Romance languages. Spanish historia and Portuguese história mean both “history” and “story.” Ende’s title implies an infinite chronicle of events (history) that is also a personal tale. The translations preserve this ambiguity—a rare win.
In both Spain and Latin America, and in Brazil, the 1984 film (dubbed as La historia sin fin and A História Sem Fim ) overshadowed the book for a generation. The film ends with Bastian flying on Falkor against the Nothing—a triumphant, Hollywood-friendly resolution. Ende hated the film because it excised the entire second half of the novel (Bastian’s hubris and redemption). La historia sin fin -Neverending story- spa-por...
Portuguese poses a unique dilemma due to the divergence between European Portuguese (PT) and Brazilian Portuguese (BR). Two main versions exist, but the most influential is the Brazilian translation by Moacyr Scliar (the acclaimed novelist) and his team for Editora Martins Fontes (c. 1988).
Consequently, Spanish and Portuguese translators have had to fight against the film’s memory. Annotated school editions in Mexico and Brazil often include afterwords explicitly explaining that the book is different: that Bastian is not a simple hero but a flawed, selfish child who must learn humility. The translation choices—keeping the slow, philosophical passages intact—serve as a counter-narrative to the film’s action-driven plot. A unique problem for Spanish and Portuguese is
| Element | German Original | Spanish ( Sáenz ) | Portuguese ( Scliar , BR) | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Title | Die unendliche Geschichte | La historia sin fin (The story without end) | A História Sem Fim (The history/story without end) | | Auryn inscription | Tu was du willst | Haz lo que quieras | Faça o que quiser | | Bastian’s cry | Mondenkind! | Hija de la Luna! | Filha da Lua! | | The Nothing | Das Nichts | La Nada | O Nada |
La historia sin fin - Neverending story - spa-por... But in European Portuguese, using tu can feel
The standard Spanish translation, rendered by Miguel Sáenz (for Alfaguara in the early 1980s), is a masterclass in fidelity with creative necessity.
Early Brazilian editions often printed the entire book in black ink due to cost, relying instead on different font families (serif for Fantasia, sans-serif for reality). This fundamentally changes the reading experience. Where Ende intended a sensual, almost synesthetic switch (red to green), the Portuguese reader must intellectually process a typographical shift. Some later luxury editions restored the colors, but the mass-market paperback creates a different, more cerebral Neverending Story .
The Infinite Labyrinth of Translation: Narrative Metafiction and Cultural Transposition in La historia sin fin (Spanish and Portuguese Contexts)