ABSTRACT
Invisibility' is the term the author used to describe the translator's situation and activity in contemporary British and American cultures. A translated text, whether prose or poetry, fiction or nonfiction, is judged acceptable by most publishers, reviewers and readers when it reads fluently, when the absence of any linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seem transparent, giving the appearance that it reflects the foreign writer's personality or intention or the essential meaning of the foreign text, the appearance, in other words, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the 'original'. The translator's invisibility is also partly determined by the individualistic conception of authorship that continues to prevail in British and American cultures. Translation contracts since World War II have in fact varied widely, partly because of the ambiguities in copyright law, but also because of other factors like changing book markets, a particular translator's level of expertise, and the difficulty of a particular translation project.
