While the ideal of the translator as the successfully transcultured self at the core of intercultural communication still informs a lot of articles and books on translation, historical-descriptive approaches to translation studies as well as contemporary fiction have in the past two decades provided a very different picture of the realities of translation, showing that translation can be abused and that it is not always the tool for successful social integration but rather associated with a loss of self and fragmented identities. This paper analyses how fictional translators in narrative texts from three different literatures are used to explore themes of marginalisation, displacement, manipulation and power struggle in a modern world. (Contains 1 note.)